Minor Guardianship

Greenlight Family Services assists individuals with becoming the legal guardian for a child in their care.

Many circumstances exist where a biological parent cannot care for their child. Those circumstances may include a parent who struggles with mental illness, drug abuse, developmental disability, incarceration or a serious physical illness, which renders them unable to care for the child on a day to day basis. In many of these situations a responsible adult steps in to care for the child. This responsible adult will need to be able to legally make decisions for the child- most importantly medical and educational decisions.

Through legal guardianship the birth parents retain rights to visit the child and, if they become able to care for the child in the future, the child may be returned to their custody. Legal guardianship through Greenlight legal services will allow the caregiver to make decisions for the child regarding his or her medical care, education, and visitation with birth parents.

Greenlight believes that guardianship is important for practical reasons, but it also has an emotional impact on the child, who will know that they have a stable place to live and a loving adult to care for them. The child is also able to keep the connection to their parent, which in many cases is extremely important to the child. Or if visitation with the parent is not in the child’s best interest, the guardian can establish rules to visitation.