Fwd: Guardianship Issues/ Families Lose Guardianship in Secret Hearings

[Guest guest]

I'm forwarding this here, please do not think this has nothing to do with

your child w/any disAbilities of autism or Down syndrome or any other

disAbilites. This can happen even to your love one who are also elders or

our own future and Heaven forbid one of our child's/adult love ones like

example siblings of our individual under any disAbilities...who may one day

get pretty injured in any form of a nightmare w/severe injuries which then

left incapacitated.

Prayers here.

Lots of families are affected, more keep joining G.R.A.D.E. with these

monstrous stories.

Can it happen in your own city within Texas? " Yes "

Are the families who are affected, that mean to be stripped off their

guardianship? " NO! "

One must know what is going on in TEXAS, really there is no one to help

protect anyone in this vicious cycle. Below, is one of the families

affected, there are more ongoing similar stories.

This is a need for court reform & the abolish of judicial & quasi-judicial

immunity.

A huge thorn in Texas.

Like us families do not have enough on our plates within this journey.

Especially when they reach age 18 y/o...hang on when bombarded that

" Guardianship is beautiful " .

Please read this story when you can, excuse me for rambling on but really

had to share this.

God Bless,

Irma

Another article.

RE:

Texas Tribune will have another story about this issue tomorrow as well.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-state-agencies/aging-and-disability-services/f\

amilies-lose-guardianship-in-secret-hearings/

Families Lose Guardianship in Secret Hearings

by Ramshaw <http://www.texastribune.org/about/staff/emily-ramshaw/>

September 15, 2010

text size A <#12b1553a058a9212_> A <#12b1553a058a9212_> A<#12b1553a058a9212_>

<http://static.texastribune.org/media/images/CovingtonFamily-ER_jpg_800x1000_q10\

0.jpg>

Enlarge<http://static.texastribune.org/media/images/CovingtonFamily-ER_jpg_800x1\

000_q100.jpg>

photo

by: Ramshaw

and Chila Covington could hardly be mistaken for cruel. They cared for

their disabled daughter at home in an era when many parents turned to

institutions — showering Ceci, who has Down syndrome, with love, affection

and opportunity. After her brother and cousins went off to college, they

enabled Ceci to " graduate " in her own way: They found her a group home with

two other young women.

But when the Covingtons argued with a group home provider who insisted that

Ceci needed psychotropic medication, they lost their daughter entirely.

After the provider accused the Covingtons of “cruelty,” a Tarrant County

judge called a secret hearing and removed the parents’ guardianship, barring

them from seeing the child they’d spent four decades raising.

“Ex parte,” or emergency, removal hearings have been legal in Texas

guardianship cases for nearly two decades. They're designed to rescue

incapacitated people in immediate danger. But in some courts around the

state, advocates say, they’re being used to remedy even routine

disagreements, effectively denying parents, adult children or other

guardians the chance to defend themselves before their loved ones are

seized.

Probate judges and court-appointed attorneys contend that they must protect

those who can’t protect themselves, and that some cases demand drastic and

immediate action. They say guardians who are removed can appeal and get

reinstated if they’ve been wronged. “The Legislature has said we’re out here

to protect the individual, not to protect the guardian,” says County

Probate Judge Guy Herman <http://www.co.travis.tx.us/probate/herman.asp>,

the presiding probate judge in Texas. “What you have going on here is people

who have done something wrong coming down to the Legislature, going to the

newspaper, instead of trying their case in a court of law. In essence,

they’re trying to intimidate judges.”

Removed guardians and elder law experts say they’ve been forced to seek

outside help because they don’t stand a chance in the courtroom. They say

the probate system’s close-knit web of judges, court-appointed attorneys and

nonprofit guardianship companies is impenetrable and stacked against

families with no legal experience and few financial resources.

“The law was set up for kids you find lying in their feces, or beaten — not

for kids who have been loved and cared for their entire lives,” says

Covington, a 65-year-old **engineering consultant who has had to take on

extra hours to pay the mounting legal fees in his fight to get his daughter

back. “But it’s being abused by the court.”

State Sen. Jane <http://www.texastribune.org/directory/jane-nelson/>,

R-Flower Mound, says she heard “troubling” testimony about a lack of

transparency in the guardianship process at a recent legislative hearing,

including one mother who “was not notified of her own son’s death.” She says

she’s looking into changing the law on ex parte hearings when lawmakers

reconvene in Austin in January — a move that would face staunch opposition

from probate judges and some disability rights advocates who fought for

tougher abuse prevention tools in the mid-1990s.

*Gift from God*

When Ceci was born on Valentine’s Day 1971, the doctor warned the Covingtons

that they might want to give her up to adoption or an institution. But the

couple treated her Down syndrome as a " gift from God. " Chila Covington had a

master’s degree in occupational therapy and had committed her career to

working with children with disabilities.

For the next 35 years, they showered Ceci with love and treated her like any

other member of their massive extended family: She went to high school,

played with her younger brother, took piano and swim lessons and became a

fixture at family weddings and reunions. Her parents committed their lives

to her development, using Montessori educational techniques, videotaping her

progress and eventually helping her find work at a local department store.

Once children with disabilities become adults, they often need legal

guardians to manage their decisions, and Ceci was no exception. In 2001, the

Covingtons sought and received guardianship of their daughter, an easy step

they never dreamed they’d have to fight to maintain. Around that same time,

they started to worry what Ceci’s life would look like when they were no

longer around — and began investigating group homes. “I wanted her to be

self-sustaining for when we’re gone,” Covington says.

It took years for the Covingtons to find a group home that they considered

suitable, where Ceci would live with two young women she knew. Her mother

was so nervous she spent the first three nights there with Ceci, helping her

settle in.

*Trust breaks down*

The first year at the Champion Services group home in Grapevine, Ceci

thrived. The trouble started in 2007, the Covingtons say, when staffing

changed. Ceci started having persistent headaches, and her mother took her

from family physician to neurologist to sleep specialist. She was diagnosed

with severe sinus problems, then sleep apnea. Her headaches and restless

sleep led to crankiness and tantrums.

Ceci's care providers believed psychotropic drugs would solve the problems,

the Covingtons say, and put Ceci on them without asking her parents'

permission. When they found out, they were livid, insisting they rule out

all of Ceci’s medical problems before pumping her with antidepressants that

could have side effects. (Champion Services, which still cares for Ceci, did

not respond to an interview request.)

From there, trust eroded on both sides. The Covingtons say Ceci's providers*

*continued to push for psychotropic drugs and a psychiatric evaluation. The

Covingtons were convinced the group home wanted a psychiatrist’s diagnosis

so they would get more money for treating her. Finally, the Covingtons say,

the staff at the group home threatened them — telling them they were going

to report the Covingtons to Adult Protective

Services<http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/adult_protection/about_adult_protective_ser\

vices/>for

abuse and ask a judge to remove them as guardians if they continued to

resist psychiatric care. The Covingtons were resolute; they’d been

complaining to the state for months and figured the threats would give them

more ammunition against the group home.

“We trusted the courts,” Covington says. “We thought they’d see what

had gone wrong.”

*A secret court*

The Covingtons never got their day in court. On July 13, 2009, they were

notified that there had been an ex parte hearing in a Tarrant County

courtroom and that, as a result, they were no longer Ceci’s guardians. For

nearly two months, the Covingtons were kept away from her — unable to even

speak to her on the phone. They frantically studied Texas’ complex probate

code and called attorney after attorney trying to find someone to help them.

They begged Ceci’s “advocates” — the attorney and guardian the judge had

appointed to protect her — to let them see their daughter for one hour a

week, and to bring her home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. On these visits,

the Covingtons say, Ceci was often so drugged she could hardly stay awake.

Every conversation, every call to the court, added to the Covingtons’ legal

bills, which have now surpassed $55,000. **

The Covingtons aren’t the only ones fighting this battle. Across North Texas

— and Tarrant and Denton counties in particular — families who have lost

guardianship rights under similar circumstances have mobilized, reaching out

to the media and demanding action from lawmakers. Debby Valdez, a San

mom who runs an organization called GRADE (Guardianship Reform

Advocates for the Disabled and Elderly), says the common thread among these

cases is that families advocated aggressively for their relatives, and care

providers used guardianship removal proceedings to retaliate.

“The bottom line is that constitutional rights are being trampled,” says

Valdez, who has an autistic child and fears her own family could face such a

nightmare someday. “This decision is made that the guardians suddenly aren’t

suitable — they don’t qualify. And families aren’t getting the opportunity

to defend themselves.”

Lin ett, associate judge in Tarrant County Probate Court No. 2, says

the theory that judges are holding ex parte hearings “willy-nilly” is

preposterous. In the last 30 years in his particular court, there have

probably been 10 ex parte guardian removals, ett says, including a

case in which a guardian starved a ward.

What the families are alleging “is so far removed from reality,” ett

says. “It only gets done in cases where people need to be stopped from

taking actions that are incredibly dangerous.”*

*

*Finally, a hearing

*

And sometimes, not even then. Garth Corbett, senior attorney with the

disability rights watchdog group Advocacy

Inc.<http://www.advocacyinc.org/index.cfm>,

says ex parte hearings are rare, and that parents almost never lose

guardianship unless there’s clear abuse and neglect. It’s much more common

for judges to defer to the parent or relative guardian, he says, even when

they don’t act in the best interests of the ward. The most common example?

Parents who want their disabled children to stay in institutions, Corbett

says, when health care and behavioral specialists think they’d be much

better off in the community.

“It’s always supposed to be in the best interest of the ward, but the legal

guardian can trump almost anything,” says Corbett, who serves on the state

board that certifies professional guardians. “Courts are very reluctant to

go against the guardian’s wishes.”

County’s Herman says the fact that families say it’s too easy to

remove them as guardians, and disability rights advocates say it’s too hard,

means it’s probably just right. For years, judges had virtually no recourse

to quickly remove abusive guardians, he says, until lawmakers responded in

1993 by writing ex parte hearings into guardianship law. “If the Legislature

wants to do away with ex parte hearings, that’s their business,” Herman

says. “But it could end up causing economic harm to people, could end up

causing physical harm.”

The Covingtons will finally get a hearing on their guardianship removal case

next month, more than a year after they first lost custody of Ceci. In a

twist, the judge who first removed Ceci from her parents recused himself

from the case in July, following several families’ accusations against him

at a legislative hearing in Austin.

In the meantime, and Chila take Benadryl to sleep. They cry

constantly. They listen to the ry in Italian and Latin, praying for a

miracle. They compulsively organize and reorganize the thousands of

documents they’ve collected to make their case: that their four decades of

experience caring for Ceci trumps anyone else’s.

“We don’t go anywhere. We don’t do anything. I have to work as much as I can

to try to pay these bills,” Covington says. “We are doing nothing but

spending our whole lives with this nightmare.”