Motion to Modify Disposition filed; Juvenile pleaded true with recommendation of long-term placement out of home in secure facility. The particular placement has some issues and decision is made 40 days or so later to place juvenile in different long-term placement. Juvenile has attorney and is still agreeing to placement out of home.

Can we do an agreed order modifying the placement, or does section 54.05(h) require us to have another hearing to do this?

I believe there still has to be a hearing but what if the child and the child's attorney waived (in writing) the child's appearance at the hearing and the child "appeared" by telephone. I've never done that but nothing I see would preclude it either. I would make sure that someone put on the record why it was done that way and that everyone agreed it was in the best interest of the juvenile.

In the past when I have done this - we simply got a written, signed, agreement from everyone - the child, his attorney, his parent, and the state and offered it to the court for approval. If the court approved, then we did not have any kind of hearing and we did not require the child and the family to appear. These were all situations such as you describe where what was changing was the placement.