Court-appointed guardians are responsible for ensuring that their charges receive adequate care. New legislation intended to ensure the well-being of adults placed under the care of a guardian requires guardians to make at least three visits per year.
How does this legislation impact the responsibilities of guardians in the state?
Visitations requirements
Court-appointed guardians must visit their charges at least once every 120 days. One of those visits must be in person. The other two can be virtual visits or video calls.
The goal of this legislation is to ensure that guardians are checking on the welfare of the people they are responsible for regularly. The law requires public guardians to check on charges once per month, but before this change, there was no requirement for guardians to make an in-person visit.
Arguments for and against the change
Advocates wanted the state to require four in-person visits per year to be in line with what many other states require. However, they settled on one visit per year due to the high caseload of many public guardians.
Opponents of the change say that even one required visit is too much for family members of residents who live in facilities for people with developmental or intellectual disabilities because there are only two facilities and family members may live far away.
Balancing the needs of family members and public guardians with the needs of incapacitated adults is difficult. Without in-person visits, some charges may suffer poor outcomes due to neglect and mistreatment; however, overworked public guardians and families who live far away may have difficulty completing these visits.
