[angelar1983]

My younger sister asked me to help her out for a week or two by taking her son(2yrs) and her daughter(7mo.), its has been a little over a month but it seems as if my sister does not want to take responsibility of her children, which is not a problem for me because I would love to have them with me, but in order to be able to care for them as may be needed I was wondering if it is possible to get custody or even adopt my niece and nephew. Or is it necessary to get approval from my sister who is no longer answering my phone calls?

[nya]

These are your options if you were here in FL:

You can file a petition in family court for custody of your niece and nephew. It costs $256.00 to do this yourself without an attorney. You must be related to the child for this option. Your sister can respond to your petiton, once you are given a court date to either deny your petiton or allow you to get custody.

Your other option would be to contact you local Social Services office and report your sister as having neglected her children which is what she has done. They will come out and investigate by speaking to you and then speaking with your sister. Then they will make the decision as to the best placement for the children. If in the long run they feel the children should be adopted they will let you know. Or they can decide becz of the circumstances, that the children should remain in a long term custody placement with you and have supervised visitation with your sister. I hope this helps.