Legal Question in Family Law in Massachusetts
Family law- Guardianship
I am the half sister of the child in question. She will be 15 in a few days. The father of my sister has left the state and all of his fatherly duties, for the past 5 years. So basically he doesn't care about his children. My mother has recently been forced to resigned her parently custody. My brother was in the adoption process but it seems DSS never provided my brother and myself the proper paperwork and we were overlooked as a possibly for our sister. I want to make it clear that my brother and myself have no pending criminal history nor were we a reason for their seperation from our mother's custody. I feel that a lot of this is due to our financial status (us being young and just starting our careers) than it has to do with us taking care of our siblings that we love very much. My brother and I would like to petion guardianship of my sister who will be of age to make this decision. I would really appreciate any help or advise from someone with the knowledge in this field. I also have a younger brother, but it seems he is being adopted by an outside family (a non-relative), and I'm not sure how deal with that circumstance. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Family law- Guardianship
Again, I highly advice you to contact an attorney to get proper assistance with this matter. The earlier advice posted was the possibility of contacting DSS to see if they would consider the possibility of your brother or you becoming legal guradians. Where your sister is 15 her opinions may be a factor.
Again I emplore you to seek legal advice immediately based on the fact the wheels of custody are presently in motion.
Try contacting DSS to find out their position on the possibility of you or your brother wanting legal guardianship. If they oppose it, you will have to file with the court to litigate same.
There is no magic potion I could give you in a sentence/paragraph without full disclosure and documentation of your sister's situation and yours. Sincerely, Maria Murber
Re: Family law- Guardianship
You still do not say why your mother has been required to give up custody of the children. If they have been severely abused or neglected, your youthfulness and lack of experience with even normal children will not help you care for seriously abused children (and I speak as one who tried to adopt a 6 and 7 year old half brother and sister which failed after about 6 months - it was an educational experience, since I've been a lawyer for 33 years and have represented children and parents in CINS, abuse and custody cases for as long).
There is not much point in trying to continue this project anonymously in this forum. If you or your brother are serious about wanting to do something to adopt or get guardianship of your half-sister, you need to consult an experienced attorney and pay for what you need to do. If you are too poor to pay for a lawyer, you may well be too poor to be able to care properly for a 15-year-old girl who may have serious emotional issues to deal with. It will be a full-time job in itself, and if you need to work full-time in a job where you cannot get time off to go to counselling or to run to school for an emergency, it's not going to work. You all will contribute to yet another failure to provide this girl with the help and support she needs.
Think carefully about what you want, and remember that sometimes the worst thing is getting what you want.
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