Specified Relative

For IV-E Eligibility, a specified relative is an individual that must meet all of the following criteria:

• • Is a qualifying relative -- that is, a relative is within 5 degrees of kinship through blood, half-blood, adoption, or marital status to the child

  • Is named in the legal removal order as the person from whom the child was legally removed

  • Lived with the child for a minimum of one night in the calendar month of removal or any of the prior 6 calendar months.

Finding Specified Relative

In Casebook, you will manually select the specified relative for IV-E determinations. In the Specified Relative section of the Manual Initial Criteria card, you will see a list of possible Specified Relatives. This list is populated by the people the child has a familial relationship with. In this list of names, each person’s name is linked to their person profile page and their relationship to the child is listed in parenthesis.

Workers find this list by expanding the menu on the Specified Relative section of the Manual Initial Criteria card. If no specified relative has been designated, the card will state that the specified relative has not been found.

For a child to pass the specified relative criteria on a IV-E Eligibility application, the child must be legally removed from a qualified relative. You will be able to see evidence of this legal removal when the FCM enters information about the court hearing and outcome. The "Legally Removed from" outcome can be associated with a wide variety of court hearings.

To find information about court hearing outcomes:

• 1. Expand the menu of court hearings titled “All Court Hearings for Child” in the Court Language section of the Manual Criteria Card (this is the last section)

• 1. Each court hearing related to the focus child will be listed here. Each hearing name is a link that will take you to the Hearing Outcome Page for that specific court hearing. It is best if you open these links in new tabs. The image below is the Hearing Outcome Page for the CHINS-Initial hearing found on the list of court hearings above.

• 1. The Hearing Outcome page lists the resulting court orders. This section will hold any relevant information about a child's legal removal. In the screen shot above, workers can see that the focus child was legally removed from Andrew Kidd on 6/18/2001.

  2. To indicate this on the eligibility application, workers would check both check boxes for Andrew Kidd. The check boxes indicate:

     1. Spec Rel: the person is within 5 degrees of blood relation and that the child was removed from

     2. 6 Mos: it is a person the child last lived with the person in the days in the calendar month in the removal or in the 6 months prior to the removal.

Qualifying Relatives

According to the definition set forth by the Indiana Department of Child Services, a qualifying relative is any of the following or the spouse of any of the following, (even if the marriage is terminated by death or divorce) who is within the fifth degree of kinship to the child and whose relationship is by blood, half-blood or legal adoption.

• • mother (stepmother);

  • father (stepfather);

  • grandmother or grandfather (great, great-great, great-great-great);

  • sister or brother (step, in-law, half);

  • aunt or uncle (great, great-great, in-law);

  • niece;

  • nephew;

• first cousin (once removed).

The definition of a specified relative does not include a non-related custodian or legal guardian.

Videos and Powerpoints

To watch a short video about completing the specified relative section on a IV-E application in Casebook, click here.