Attorneys overseeing minor guardianship cases face months-long waits before seeing judges and often have petitions where caregivers are seeking temporary guardianship denied, rulings that can effectively deny children of financial support and even health care.
There are “large missing chunks of law” when it comes to helping children during guardianship cases, Marina Dalia-Hunt, a minor guardianship attorney with the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, told lawmakers during a legislative Interim Judiciary Committee meeting last week..
Children facing abuse or neglect can be removed from parents and placed in the child dependency system, such as Child Protective Services or foster care.
That dependency system affords them access to legal representation and other resources, such as financial assistance for caregivers, Dalia-Hunt said.
Not every child goes that route, and instead a relative might take the child in, which is where some legal challenges can arise.
“We’ve noticed in a lot of our cases the caregiver, who is now seeking guardianship, has been caring for the child for some time,” Dalia-Hunt said, adding In some instances caregivers have raised children “from infancy through 5 years old.”
“Then, it’s time to enroll the kid in kindergarten, and they don’t have a guardianship so they come to the court,” she said.
The wait time to see a judge after the initial petition for guardianship is three to four months, she said.
“Children’s emergencies cannot wait three to four months,” she said.
Dalia-Hunt highlighted several recent cases where caregivers sought to get temporary guardianship but were denied by the court. It’s a common occurrence, she said.
In one instance, Dalia-Hunt said temporary guardianship was needed for a child to seek treatment for kidney failure. The case was denied.
Legal Aid was able to appeal the case to the Nevada Supreme Court, along with several other cases, and have temporary guardianship granted.
“Those kids were lucky enough to have an attorney who was practicing in this area for the last five years,” said Jonathan Norman, policy director with the Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers.
There are countless situations where people lack legal representation, he said.
“We don’t represent every kid in Clark County,” Norman said. “We don’t have the resources and number of attorneys. It’s important when we think about how these laws impact pro se litigants, the unrepresented kids.”
The Legal Aid Center has represented thousands of children and opened more than 600 new minor guardianship cases last year.
There are differences in resources and support children get when they enter the child welfare system versus when they go to live with caregivers without entering the child dependency system, Dalia-Hunt explained to lawmakers.
She said in child dependency cases, a child and parent are wrapped in services “so that the child can receive the educational services, therapeutic services, medical services that they need in a safe environment and the parent can work on reunification.”
“None of that exists in guardianship,” she added.
Some caregivers who haven’t become formal guardians struggle with resources, including accessing Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF. She said even if approved, families often receive around $400 a month regardless of how many children.
“One child or nine, the most we’ve ever seen, is $432 a month,” she said. “In the dependency (system), adoption subsidies are around $800 per child per month.”
Another issue, she said, was that courts don’t consider relationships to the child “beyond blood relationship” such as step parents.
Legal Aid also referenced a case where the mother, who was dying of cancer, wrote in her will that she wanted her best friend to take over care of her daughter.
“An uncle from out of state petitioned for guardianship having never met the child,” Dalia-Hunt said. The judge granted guardianship to the uncle “contrary to what mom, who had then passed, had wanted for her daughter.”
Though there have been reforms to the adult guardianship process, Katie Anderson, an attorney with the Guardianship Advocacy Project with the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, said there are other issues the legislature could address.
If an adult guardian wants to move the person in their care, who is an adult, in their care out of state, they would file a petition with the court.
Anderson said if “the judge grants permission to move against the wishes of the protected person,” the person in care isn’t able to appeal the decision.