52-2-404. Requirements for licensure. The department must issue licenses to agencies meeting the following minimum requirements:
     (1) The chief function of the agency must be the care and placement of minor children.
     (2) The agency must operate on a nonprofit basis and be financially responsible in and for its operation.
     (3) The directing or managing personnel of the agency must be qualified both on the basis of professional education and personality.
     (4) Complete records must be kept of both the minor children and adopting parents with which the agency deals, and such records must be confidential.
     (5) The agency must follow the practice of verifying that the child is legally available for adoption and of not completing the adoption until the child has been in the proposed adoptive home for a trial period.
     (6) The agency must have and use facilities for making a social study of the child and proposed adoptive parents before placement of the child, particularly with regard to:
     (a) the physical and mental health, emotional stability, and personal integrity of the adopting parents and their ability to promote the child's welfare; and
     (b) the physical and mental condition of the child and its family background.
     (7) The agency must agree to cooperate with courts having jurisdiction in adoptive matters and with other public agencies having to deal with the welfare of minor children.
     (8) Any such agency must annually submit a full, complete, and true financial statement to the department, and such statement shall contain a full accounting of the operations of such agency during the preceding year.

     History: En. Sec. 3, Ch. 179, L. 1949; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 156, L. 1957; amd. Sec. 49, Ch. 121, L. 1974; R.C.M. 1947, 10-703(part); Sec. 53-4-404, MCA 1989; redes. 52-2-404 by Code Commissioner, 1991.