Gaining Guardianship of 1/2 Siblings in Another State

**krdds** · 03-06-2012, 07:06 PM

My question involves guardianship in the State of: Washington and California

My husband (A) and I are residents of Washington state. We are in our mid-thirties. My husband has two half siblings (H, 15 and D, 17) who live in California. Their father (who was estranged from my husband) passed away about 5 years ago. H & D's biological mother is in prison somewhere and the children have been living with their father's widow since his death. Though my husband had not seen them since D was a toddler and H was an infant, he got in touch with them after their father's death and has remained in phone contact with them since then. H told him recently that D left home to go live in Oregon with friends a few months ago, which is where H and D spent most of their childhood.

My husband received a text message from H today that she was picked up at school by CPS and that they are looking for a friend for her to stay with or she will end up in foster care because the step-mother is giving up her rights as guardian for them. My husband spoke with both the step-mother and H and confirmed that the step-mother is, indeed, going to court tomorrow to abandon her rights as their guardian.

We told H that she is welcome to come live with us. We live in Seattle where I am attending dental school. We don't know anything about the law or regulation of this kind of thing. Do we have any legal right to act as guardians for her simply because my husband is her sibling? Will CPS give her over to us if we express our interest in taking care of her? Do we need to go through some formal process for her to stay with us (home inspections and CPS visits and certification and all the other stuff you see on TV?) or can we just go pick her up? How does living in different states change things? We want to go about this in the right way, of course. I'm just wondering what the first steps should be and if it's even a possibility that she could actually come stay with us. We offered without hesitation or question, and then realized that we should probably find out how to actually go about it and if it is feasible.

Thanks in advance for your help!

**Dogmatique** · 03-06-2012, 07:11 PM

You should really be speaking to CPS.

Since they are involved, this complicates things greatly.

It also sounds as if stepmom and H don't really understand the process of changing guardianship. I strongly suggest you get an attorney, and get in touch with CPS directly.

Your husband being blood-related currently has no bearing at all; it doesn't give him any automatic rights.

You both really need to sit down and think this through, too - if this goes ahead, you're going to end up be guardians to a bereaved teen whose other guardian has just rejected her outright (if indeed that's the truth). This is NOT going to be easy.

**krdds** · 03-06-2012, 07:59 PM

Thanks for the input, Dogmatique. We'll call CPS tomorrow. There is a lot of info missing information at this stage, but I do know that my husband talked with the step-mom today and she is indeed abandoning H, unfortunately. I agree that this is a tough situation, but I don't see how we could just leave her to foster care.

**Dogmatique** · 03-06-2012, 08:07 PM

Absolutely contact CPS. You can absolutely suggest yourselves as placement, and if there are no closer relatives willing to take her in, you should at least be considered after going through all of the hoops.

Do feel free to come back if you want to update or ask more questions; third party placements (specially when the other parent is absent - because that's another complication right there unfortunately) are unusual, and your experience might help someone else

Good luck, no matter what. Hopefully things will turn out well for H.

**krdds** · 03-10-2012, 08:18 PM

Update:
H is currently in a group foster home in CA. We have spoken with her about it all and she is eager to move up here with us. She is having a pretty rough time in the group home. She is pressing her caseworker to make it happen quickly. My husband has spoken with her caseworker also and her case is being transferred from CA to WA state. We are in the process of getting the necessary paperwork, training, etc. in order to be eligible for her to stay with us. It looks like it will be a few weeks before we have everything in place, but we're trying to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible...