How Federal Child Welfare Policies and Georgia’s Legitimation Law Impact Paternal Rights

As federal child welfare policies advance support for kinship placements, Georgia must confront how legitimation barriers and agency practices shape opportunities for fathers and paternal relatives.

By Kenneth Braswell, CEO, Fathers Incorporated

For an unmarried father in Georgia, being recognized as a child’s biological father and being recognized as a parent with enforceable custody or visitation rights are different matters. 

In the work of Fathers Incorporated, that distinction — the direct result of Georgia’s outdated legitimation law — belongs at the center of any serious conversation about father engagement. We can encourage a man to become more dependable, more involved, and better prepared to parent, but we also have to examine whether the systems around him provide a workable path for exercising that responsibility.

The question becomes especially urgent when his child may enter foster care. If Dad is safe, willing, and capable of helping, what happens next? Does the child welfare agency identify and assess him? Does someone explain his legal status and help him find the appropriate legal assistance? Are his relatives considered? Or does the absence of legitimation become a reason to stop asking questions that could matter to the child’s future?

Federal Child Welfare Guidelines and Paternal Rights

Recent federal child welfare guidance gives us an opening to examine those questions. A June 2026 clarification allows participating Title IV-E agencies to count up to 60 days of certain licensing or approval delays toward the six-month requirement for kinship guardianship assistance. It addresses a specific administrative barrier. It does not repeal Georgia’s legitimation law or automatically grant custody rights to biological fathers.

Georgia’s paternity policy still distinguishes paternity establishment from custody and visitation rights. A father’s biological connection matters, but identifying that connection doesn’t resolve every legal question. We should therefore be precise when we ask whether federal language about biological fathers changes his position. The verified change concerns guardianship assistance. We cannot promise a father that it supplies parental rights he has not otherwise established.

Yet Georgia’s child welfare policy contains an important opening of its own. DFCS Policy 10.4 places noncustodial parents first in its stated order of placement preferences, subject to selecting an appropriate placement for the child. It permits placement with a father under specified conditions when both parents agree he is the father and/or he has an established relationship with the child. It also contemplates completing paternity-related steps after placement in certain circumstances, including placements involving a putative father or his relatives. Existing court orders, assessments, and safety requirements remain relevant.

That policy deserves wider understanding. It means that unresolved legal status does not automatically end the inquiry into whether Dad or his relatives can provide appropriate care. It does not mean a placement decision gives him unrestricted or permanent parental rights. The difference between those two propositions is where families need clear explanations and competent assistance. A father should not be told that the door is closed when policy allows consideration. He should also understand what legal steps remain after a door opens.

Child Welfare and Legitimation Education

Georgia already assigns DFCS a role in explaining those steps. Policy 17.15 requires the agency to inform fathers about legitimation. When a dependency proceeding is pending, staff are directed to explain that a father may petition in juvenile court and to refer him to his appointed attorney, if he has one, for help. Informing someone of a process, however, is not the same as ensuring that he can navigate it. The practical questions concern access to counsel, timely filing, and whether the father understands how the proceeding affects his ability to parent.

This is where the state should invest in a more dependable connection between child welfare and legal assistance. I would like Georgia to establish clear referral arrangements with qualified legal providers, track whether referrals result in actual help, and review delays that leave parental status unresolved. Fathers Incorporated and other community organizations can help with education, preparation, and follow-through. They cannot replace legal representation, and fathers should not have to discover the right pathway by accident while their children’s permanency decisions move forward.

The paternal family deserves the same clarity. Georgia’s diligent-search policy specifically includes noncustodial parents and both maternal and paternal relatives. It requires search efforts before initial foster care placement and documentation in Georgia SHINES. A grandmother’s potential to provide safe care should be assessed on the relevant facts, with any necessary relationship verification completed through the proper process. Her son’s unresolved legal standing should not be treated as a complete assessment of her household, her relationship with the child, or her ability to help.

When Child Welfare Fails to Consider Paternal Relatives

We also have evidence that implementation requires attention. Georgia’s Round 4 federal child welfare review examined practices from March 2023 through March 2024. Its paternal-relative concern breakdown reported failures to make concerted efforts to identify relatives in 11 of 17 cases and to inform them in 14 of 17. Those figures describe a specified subset of reviewed cases, not the rate across all Georgia families. They also predate the recent federal clarification. Even with those limits, they give the state a concrete responsibility to explain what has improved since the review.

A policy can be available to every county and still be understood differently from one office to the next. Supervisors should ask when the father was identified, whether he was reached, how his legal status was documented, and what happened after he expressed interest in caring for his child. They should ask the same practical questions about paternal relatives. Where outreach or assessment did not occur, the record should distinguish a documented safety restriction from an unsuccessful search, an administrative delay, or an untested assumption.

Georgia also needs to be candid about financial support. Its policy effective August 2026 states that DFCS has opted out of the federal Title IV-E Kinship Guardianship Program, while describing other support arrangements, including state guardianship subsidies. We should not announce the June federal clarification as an automatic new Georgia benefit. We should ask state leaders to explain the costs, eligibility differences, and potential consequences of participating or remaining outside the federal option. Families deserve to know which assistance actually applies to them and where avoidable delays remain.

Public accountability should follow these questions through to outcomes. Georgia should report how often fathers are identified and successfully contacted, how many need help resolving paternity or legitimation, whether they receive legal assistance, and how long those steps take. The state should separately examine searches and assessments involving maternal and paternal relatives. Aggregate reporting can protect family privacy while showing whether location, race, income, or legal status is associated with different opportunities to participate. Case reviews and family feedback should test the accuracy of those records.

None of this relieves fathers of their responsibilities. A man seeking a larger role must respond, cooperate with appropriate assessments, follow court orders, and demonstrate that his care will benefit his child. A history of harm requires honest examination. Mothers’ safety and children’s needs remain essential. The purpose of removing an unnecessary barrier is to create a fair opportunity for responsible parenting, with decisions grounded in behavior and circumstances.

Georgia has already written policies that allow the inquiry to reach beyond the custodial household. The next task is to make those provisions dependable in practice and connect them to a clear path toward lasting legal recognition. When a safe father is prepared to care for his child, the state should be able to explain how it assessed him, what assistance it provided, and why it reached its decision. A child’s opportunity to remain connected to Dad and his family should not depend on whether someone happened to understand the policy that day.