Going from temporary guardianship to permanent

**mrtnz243** · 01-13-2007, 08:02 PM

On Friday Sept 8, 2006 my sister in law asked my fiancee and I to watch her three oldest children overnight while she made some last minute preparations (she told us her husband was abusive and that she was going to go to a battered wives shelter). She didn't show up saturday and when we called number that she left us they told us no one by that name was present. We went to the residence where the children's father lived and he refused to answer the door. We filed a missing persons report. CPS got involved when the eldest child had an asthma attack and we had to take her to the hospital. We got temp. guardianship of the children. At the end of september the mother told us via e-mail that she would not be contesting guardianship. We went to court for permanent guardianship in Oct. and neither parent showed up. We had more paperwork we had to turn in and we were supposed to go back in Jan. 5th.
We hired an attorney to help us with the paperwork . She told us that we needed a continuation to contact the paternal grandmother. After that we were not able to get in contact with the attorney and do not know if a continuation was ever filed. The parents showed up on the 5th and stated that they had not been notified and had been denied visitation. Both of which were untrue, they chose not to see them. Now the court says we have to arrange visitation with the parents.
We think this would be harmful to the children since we recently found out that the parents are addicted to meth and the father is an alcohol, who punched his youngest in the face for spilling cheetos. The kids have not seen or heard from them in over four months. The children are afraid to see them.

Is there a way to contest the visitation? We are suppose to go to mediation with the parents before the court date March 14th. Can we contest it then? Please help.

**aaron** · 01-14-2007, 08:41 AM

You can go back to court and ask the judge to reconsider. But if the judge has already heard your allegations and nothing has since changed, the judge probably won't change his decision.