West Virginia Code § 48-23-601

Compilation of nonidentifying information on health history and social
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and genetic history.
(a) Prior to placement for adoption, the court shall require that the licensed adoption agency
or, where an agency is not involved, the person, entity or organization handeling the
adoption, shall compile and provide to the prospective adoptive parents a detailed written
health history and genetic and social history of the child. These historiers must exclude
information that would identify birth parents or members of a birth parent's family. The
histories must be set forth in a document that is separate from any document containing
such identifying information.
(b) The court, or an agency designated by the court, or judge thereof, shall provide to an
agency, person, or organization handling the adoption the forms which must be utilized in
the acquisition of the above-described detailed nonidentifying written health history and
genetic and social history of the child. If the records cannot be obtained, the court shall
make specific findings as to why the records asre unobtainable.
(c) Records containing such nonidentifying information and which are set forth on a
document described in subsection (ag) above, separate from any document containing
identifying data:
(1) Shall be retained by the clerk of the court for ninety-nine years; and
(2) Shall be available upon request, throughout the time specified in subdivision (1) of this
subsection together with any additional nonidentifying information which may have been
added on health or on genetic and social history, but which excludes information identifying
any birth parent or member of a birth parent's family, or the adoptee or any adoptive parent
of the adoptee, to the following persons only:
(A) The adoptive parents of the child or, in the event of death of the adoptive parents, the
child's guardian;
(B) The adoptee upon reaching the age of eighteen;
(C) In the event of the death of the adoptee, the adoptee's spouse if he or she is the legal
parent of the adoptee's child or the guardian of any child of the adoptee;
(D) In the event of the death of the adoptee, any progeny of the adoptee who is age eighteen
or older; and
(E) The birth parent of the adoptee.
(d) The person requesting nonidentifying health history and genetic and social history shall
pay the actual and reasonable costs of providing that information. This provision requiring
payment of costs is subject to sections of this article that provide for the adoptee to obtain
information by petitioning the court.
PART 7. PROHIBITED CONDUCT.

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