Court program gives residents ‘guardian angels’ - Your Houston News

Court program gives residents ‘guardian angels’
- Your Houston News: News



By Anna Waugh
Posted: Sunday, February 5, 2012 12:05 pm

A new court program is pairing community members with guardianship cases to help ensure the people entrusted to guardians get the proper care to lead healthy, safe lives.

The Probate Court Visitor Program was inspired by Montgomery County Court-at-Law 2 Judge Claudia Laird, whose court oversees the county’s more than 400 guardianships.

While many large counties like Dallas and Harris counties already have a program where volunteers visit wards annually to check on their health and living conditions, starting one in Montgomery County is necessary, Laird said, because of the growing number of guardianships for physically or mentally incapacitated residents.

“Montgomery County, of course, is in that in-between stage, so that’s why we’re taking the next step,” she said. “We haven’t had the means to check on these cases.”

Volunteers will go through an application process and background check, she said, and be required to attend a training sessions to explain the visitation and documentation processes.

The program may be able to find many volunteers by offering college credit through internships for criminal justice and social services students at area colleges, but the details of the college credit is still in progress, Laird said.

Aside from cases where a person is granted guardianship and may be taking advantage of his or her ward, Laird said she once received a letter from a woman in a nursing home explaining that she was able to take care of herself but felt trapped because her doctor and guardian had agreed she needed living assistance.

Laird then assigned a court investigator to look into the matter and request an outside medical evaluation. The woman was found to be physically and mentally competent, Laird said, and she was allowed to leave the nursing home.

“We addressed and investigated it, but had we had visitors in place, we would have found it sooner,” she said. “We’ve just got to get someone to keep eyes on these people and make sure they’re OK.”

Laird has been visiting various clubs and organizations recently to recruit volunteers for the program, and six interested people attended a training session Thursday to learn about annual visits, and reports, and how to watch for certain signs of unsafe living conditions.

Carol Carter, one of six volunteers at Thursday’s training, said she heard Laird speaking about the program. She decided to volunteer because her husband passed away in 2007 after suffering from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s for 15 of the 25 years they were together.

“People deteriorate psychologically and physically and they need people to make certain they have good care and respect in that process,” Carter said. “They need people to watch over them like guardian angels to make sure they get that.”

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http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/courier/news/court-program-gives-residents-guardian-angels/article_934aa425-7d5a-54f6-a8e5-a471524d76d6.html

Editor's note: A program, similar to the Houston program, instituted in the corrupt Probate Court of Cook County would include only  political hacks and cronies as "guardian angels".  Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com

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