Location: Indiana, US
Hey, yall. I (26 NB) have had guardianship of my little sister (11F) for 3 years now. I was granted guardianship when she was 8.
Our mom is an addict, severely mentally ill, borderline homeless, and was EXTREMELY neglectful and abusive. Her dad hasn't seen her since she was 18 months old and never really made any attempt to get into contact with her or get custody, besides the last time he saw her, when he essentially kidnapped her and took her across state lines.
Our mom didn't fight the guardianship at all, didnt even go to court, but she was really angry with me. Her dad supported it.
I tried to have low supervised contact with my mom, but she quickly proved to be too unstable, and we went no contact with her about 2.5 years ago. From what little visibility I have of her life, she seems to be in about the same situation, if not worse.
Her dad is, to my knowledge, about 5 years? sober now. He reached out when I got guardianship and asked if he could get back into contact with my sister. She said she wanted to. He said he would call twice a week and set the days and that he would visit by Christmas. The calls got less and less frequent, 3 Christmases passed with no visit, just saying he would come "soon." Their phone calls never lasted more than 5 minutes and he only talked about himself. I made the decision that enough was enough fairly recently when he tried to guilt trip her for not calling him back when he hadn't bothered to call for months before that (she has a flip phone he was calling her on that i monitor).
I recently dealt with DCS because a douchebag neighbor kid slapped my sister and her friend on the butt while they were playing outside. DCS has to investigate if a child is inappropriately touched, obviously. It was a pretty open and shut case. They interviewed my sister, and that was basically it. The caseworker told me she had to contact both bio parents bc they still have parental rights. She also reported back to me that my mom said she was going to "make some moves to try to move guardianship around." Her dad also reached out to me acting concerned like it was someone in the home who was dangerous, even though she told me that she told them what the investigation was for.
I've never gotten any form of financial support (or anything, period) from either of them or the government (besides healthcare). Times are getting tougher, and i had some extenuating life circumstances come up. I looked into it and saw that I could apply for a child-only TANF that is basically just for this type of situation. But the way it works is that the government will basically pay me child support and then pursue one or both of her parents for reimbursement (im not sure which).
My fear is that if I apply for this that her parents will get angry and try to petition to end the guardianship. Frankly, I think the support is deserved since I have been raising my sister for years now. But I don't want to do anything to jeopardize the situation.
Im guessing it would default to my mom, which is fine because 1. She doesn't work or own anything, so it basically won't affect her. And 2. She is so obviously not stable enough to prove she can take care of my sister (I hope at least, the system can be really fucked up, I would know).
If it goes to her dad, I'm worried he will try to end the guardianship out of spite bc hes got a huge ego. And that he will play "woe is me it was the moms fault I couldn't see her" even though that wasn't true then and obv isn't true now since he had 3 years to come see her and didnt. He also lives in Arkansas. My concern mainly comes from how biased Indiana can be towards bio parents in these situations.
My home is stable, my sister is in school and goes to the doctor, we always have food, both ingredients and snacks, her and my daughter are extremely close and they call each other sisters, we have a ton of toys and books, the apartment is kept as maintained as possible with 2 working adults, a crazy 11 year old, and an even crazier 4 year old, she has a chore chart that is reasonable, for structure, and her own room, the only discipline i use is natural consequences and occasionally grounding, and i know for a fact she does not want to live with either of her bio parents.
My question is: Do i need to worry and should I prepare? I know it depends, but I would just like to hear different people's opinions because I'm really anxious about it.
Is there a reality that they'd return her to our mom even though she is in psychosis, or like without drug testing her or anything?
Is there a reality where they'd send her to live out of state with her dad, who she doesn't even remember? He's basically a stranger to her.
TIA.
TL;DR: What is the likelihood of my 3 year guardianship of my sister being terminated by the parents who are 1. Our mom, unstable, long history of issues and custody of none of her kids and 2. Her dad who hasn't seen her since she was an infant. My home is stable and basically the same as it was when I was granted guardianship.