43-905 Guardianship; care; placement; contracts; payment for maintenance.
43-905. Guardianship; care; placement; contracts; payment for maintenance.(1) The Department of Health and Human Services shall be the legal guardian of all children committed to it. The department shall afford temporary care and shall use special diligence to provide suitable homes for such children. The department is authorized to place such children in suitable families for adoption or, in the discretion of the department, on a written contract.(2) The contract shall provide (a) for the children's education in the public schools or otherwise, (b) for teaching them some useful occupation, and (c) for kind and proper treatment as members of the family in which they are placed.(3) Whenever any child who has been committed to the department becomes self-supporting, the department shall declare that fact and the guardianship of the department shall cease. Thereafter the child shall be entitled to his or her own earnings. Guardianship of and services by the department shall never extend beyond the age of majority, except that services by the department to a child shall continue until the child reaches the age of twenty-one if the child is a student regularly attending a school, college, or university or regularly attending a course of vocational or technical training designed to prepare such child for gainful employment.(4) Whenever the parents of any ward, whose parental rights have not been terminated, have become able to support and educate their child, the department shall restore the child to his or her parents if the home of such parents would be a suitable home. The guardianship of the department shall then cease.(5) Whenever permanent free homes for the children cannot be obtained, the department shall have the authority to provide and pay for the maintenance of the children in private families, boarding homes, or institutions for care of children. SourceLaws 1911, c. 62, § 5, p. 274; R.S.1913, § 7229; C.S.1922, § 6886; C.S.1929, § 83-504; Laws 1937, c. 202, § 1, p. 826; C.S.Supp.,1941, § 83-504; R.S.1943, § 83-243; Laws 1945, c. 246, § 1, p. 779; Laws 1951, c. 325, § 1, p. 1097; Laws 1953, c. 344, § 1, p. 1118; Laws 1957, c. 387, § 1, p. 1345; Laws 1959, c. 443, § 1, p. 1491; Laws 1961, c. 415, § 32, p. 1261; Laws 1965, c. 245, § 1, p. 695; Laws 1967, c. 248, § 4, p. 657; Laws 1969, c. 349, § 1, p. 1219; Laws 1977, LB 312, § 5; Laws 1978, LB 732, § 1; Laws 1992, LB 169, § 1; Laws 1996, LB 1044, § 185; Laws 1996, LB 1155, § 10; Laws 1998, LB 1073, § 29; Laws 2007, LB296, § 124. Cross ReferencesFoster Parent Liability and Property Damage Fund, see section 43-1320.