[Momma R]

My daughter ran off & I have her kids for 6 months. For a while she could come around to stir up trouble and scare the kids. Now she has taken all her items from my home. Can I get custody so the poor kids aren't worried each time the door bell rings? My husband and I support kids completely, food, shelter, clothes etc... She receives child support/food stamps but she uses that for whoever she is dating at the moment.

School starting soon, kids are worried and I need to add the kids to my insurance and can't without court order. I have a notary paper she filled out giving me custody in case she was ill, dead or unable to provide for the kids.

PLEASE HELP US

[ANM9306]

Yes! Get a lawyer or contact the child protective services in your county to get help.

[Fr_Chuck]

She can not sign a paper giving you custody if something happened. That paper only shows she was a good mother trying to provide for her kids, It may well hurt your case more than help.

This is not going to be done without an attorney, and I expect you will have to start with guardianship.

In GA ( assuming thiis is Cobb county GA (** where I am from normally) the law is that a parents rights can not be taken away merely because they do not visit or do not support the kids,

Next their fathers will have rights to come and ask for custody also.

So you will really need an attorney to get this moving. And it will take months, in Cobb country it may be two or three months to get into court for a hearing.

[ScottGem]

You can apply for emergency guardianship. That should allow you to register them for school and get them covered by insurance.

From there you would need to deal with the father issue to get custody.

[ScottGem]

contact the child protective services

Why would the OP want to do that? By involving CPS (or the local equivalent) she is opening a can of worms which could result in the children being placed in foster care.

[ANM9306]

Food stamps, child support, child protective services, legal aid and all of those things are linked together by social services in my county. Just making a suggestion.

[Fr_Chuck]

CPS has nothing to do with food stamps anywhere, there is a case or social worker that will review for benefits such as food stamps, medicaid, and other assistance, I amnot aware of any place in the US that these workers do anything with CPS, expect refer some case if they see a need.

CPS involvement can make both parents lose child even.

And in Cobb County I know as a fact the two are not connected at all.

Cobb county has no problem giving grandparents guardianship, but as a practice they are slow taking rights away and giving full custody to someone other than parent, without working hard to keep child in a parents home.

But the courts there are pretty fair, the courthouse good. Also there are several great attorneys.

[JudyKayTee]

Food stamps, child support, child protective services, legal aid and all of those things are linked together by social services in my county. Just making a suggestion.

They are linked together? I don't even know what that means.

Bad advice, indeed.

[ScottGem]

Food stamps, child support, child protective services, legal aid and all of those things are linked together by social services in my county. Just making a suggestion.

First, I doubt if that is actually true. Your county may have an overall Social Services category that encompasses all these but they are still separate agencies. There may even be someone who operates under the banner of Social Services that directs people to the correct agency. But I suspect these are still separate and distinct agencies.

Second, applying one's limited experience to a general situation is not giving quality advice.

We appreciate that you want to help our members, but we have standards here on the accuracy and quality of the answers here. So we ask you to be more careful when responding to questions that your answer meets these standards.

[AK lawyer]

... She receives child support/food stamps but she uses that for whoever she is dating at the moment. ...

Someone should turn her in for fraud. :(