(Disclaimer: This is a page made by a citizen with input from other citizens who are trying to help you, but it is NOT professional legal advice. 

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STOPPING PROBATE CORRUPTION

BY

PROVIDING BETTER CARE

INSTEAD OF

REMOVING RIGHTS

RESOURCES PAGE

This page will give you some helpful information to pass along to legislators and news media. There's a lot more out there, but it's a good start. We need everybody to approach their State and Federal legislators all across the US and make a big noise to that they know this is systemic abuse and exploitation on an industrial level.

The following materials will help you understand the concept better. These are downloads of files which range from simple brocheures to what witnesses said to congress in the past, and historical explanations of guardianship's evolution.

WARNING!

Certain organizations such as the NGA -National Guardianship Organization, provide MISLEADING and false information on their web sites and otherwise. They should not be considered to be trustworthy. They make claims which appear true "on paper," while full-well knowing that the reality of how guardianship/conservatorship works in practice is quite different in devastatingly negative ways.


BOBBIE ASPLUND SUPPORTIVE DECISION MAKING LAW

2021-9-19 SDM Proposal.pdf (This is the 9/19/2021 revision of the proposal I am presenting. )

2021-9-19 SDM Introduction-FAQ.pdf   (This is the FAQ and Introduction to the 9/19/2021 revision of the proposal I am presenting.)

Here are some flawed Supported Decision Making attempts by various States.

Can you tell why they won't work?

(When you click on the link, scroll down and click the "View resource" link)

 

Florida HB 681.pdf and Florida SB 1010.pdf (These two Bills, introduced in Florida in February 2021 are near clones, and they are similar to my proposal, but have a few very important differences.)

Asplund D-SDM vs Florida.pdf (This is a comparison between my proposal and the Florida Bills. Please note the differences and my notations about why the Florida version will not work as intended.)

Senate Financial Abuse Guardians.pdf (From 2016. A brief summary telling about financial abuse by guardians.)




What Supported Decision Making is all about:

New-Supported-Decision-Making-Position-Statement.pdf (A short online pamphlet describing the basics.)

Supported-Decision-Making-Brochure.pdf (A short online pamphlet describing the basics.)

National Resource Center For Supported Decision Making

Turning Rights Into Reality  A pdf document from the National Resource Center For Supported Decision Making

NIH- National Library of Medicine   Evaluation of a decision-making curriculum designed to empower women with mental retardation to resist abuse.

Making it Happen: Strategies for Supported Decision-Making


Supported Decision-Making: A Viable Alternative to Guardianship?  by Nina A. Kohn, Jeremy A. Blumenthal & Amy T. Campbell

   

SDM-Handbook_Oct2020.6.pdf  (It's from California, and written for parents of adults, but it could easily stand as a guide for any advocates for vulnerable persons.)

The-Trust-as-an-Alternative-to-Guardianship-by-Joel-S-Welber-2018-05-18.pdf (A legal argument)

guardianship_reform.pdf  (An overview of Michigan's Reform attempts, but these were weak and ineffectual attempts to address a problem by not going after the root causes.)

 

Some of what the US Government has explored:

Witness statements: They are worth reading, but there is one huge problem with them. They are statements made by professionals working in the field, so their perspective is very limited to that. What is missing is the perspective f the victims. Only the victims really understand just how impossible it can be for a vulnerable person to obtain any meaningful justice in any meaningful time. Nowhere is the term “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied” more applicable. But it is not merely delayed. The most important thing to understand is that guardianship/conservatorship in general specifically makes a vulnerable person 100% helpless to obtain justice because when the guardian is the exploiter and abuser and supported by the court despite that, the guardian has ALL of the power to obstruct and deny justice.

The simple answer is right there in the 13th and 14th Amendments. And my proposal uses those to create a system which provides for all the needs and preserves the rights of the person. It should happen this way anyway, but when we let States do otherwise with living persons, they design laws which violate these expected guaranteed rights, and in practice, those laws are often not followed as intended.

Guardianship_ A Violation of the American with Disabilities Act a.pdf (Contains a very good historical perspective on the evolution of guardianship)

 

G Accountability Act 2019 BILLS-116s591is.pdf

 

Senate Financial Exploitation 4-18-2018

GAO-17-33 Elder Abuse and Guardianship Final Report.pdf

RPC_04_18_18 Casey statement.pdf

SMC_04_18_18 Collins statement.pdf

SCA_Slayton_04_18_18.pdf

SCA_Flannigan_04_18_18.pdf

SCA_Teaster_04_18_18.pdf

Witness Kohn.pdf

 

Senate Guardianship Accountability Act 11-28-2018

Guardianship Accountability Act

https://www.aging.senate.gov/press-releases/senate-aging-committee-examines-ways-to-strengthen-guardianship-programs

Senate Aging Committee Examines Ways to Strengthen Guardianship Programs

AT THE HEARING, THE COMMITTEE RELEASED ITS ANNUAL REPORT, WHICH STEMS FROM A YEAR-LONG INVESTIGATION OF WAYS TO IMPROVE THE GUARDIANSHIP SYSTEM

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Click HERE for a copy of Senator Collins’ opening statement

Click HERE for a copy of Senator Casey’s opening statement

Click HERE for a copy of the Aging Committee’s report on guardianships

Click HERE for a one-pager and HERE for the bill text of the Guardianship Accountability Act

Click HERE to read the witnesses’ testimonies.

Washington, D.C. — The Senate Aging Committee has been alerted of appalling stories from Americans across the country regarding abusive guardianships that take advantage of vulnerable individuals. These guardians are entrusted with significant power over those who rely on their support. Their authority can range from deciding where an individual will live and when to seek medical care to choosing if family members are allowed to visit and how to spend retirement savings.

Although guardians provide a valuable and essential service for many Americans in need of support and protection, unscrupulous guardians acting with little oversight have used guardianship proceedings to obtain control of vulnerable individuals and have then used that control to liquidate assets and savings for their own personal benefit.

Today, U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Bob Casey (D-PA), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Aging Committee, examined this issue and released the Committee’s report in a hearing titled, “Ensuring Trust: Strengthening State Efforts to Overhaul the Guardianship Process and Protect Older Americans.” This hearing is the culmination of a year-long examination of ways in which the system can be improved to better protect individuals subject to these and similar arrangements from abuse, neglect, and exploitation.  The bipartisan report addresses three key areas – the importance of guardianship oversight, alternatives to guardianship, and the need for improved data – and makes 13 recommendations.

As a result of the Committee’s investigation, Senators Collins and Casey announced during the hearing that they are introducing the Guardianship Accountability Act. This bipartisan legislation would promote information sharing among courts and local organizations as well as state and federal entities, encourage the use of background checks and less restrictive alternatives to guardianship, and expand the availability of federal grants to improve the guardianship system.  

An estimated 1.3 million adults are under the care of guardians – family members or professionals – who control approximately $50 billion of their assets,” said Senator Collins.  “Guardianship is a legal relationship created by a court that is designed to protect those with diminished or lost capacity. We found, however, that in many cases, the system lacks basic protections leaving the most vulnerable Americans at risk of exploitation.”  

While most guardians act in the best interest of the individual they care for, far too often, we have heard horror stories of guardians who have abused, neglected or exploited a person subject to guardianship. As our report notes, there are persistent and widespread problems with guardianship arrangements nationwide,” said Senator Casey. “This is why Sen. Collins and I introduced the Guardianship Accountability Act to begin reforming the guardianship system to ensure the protection of seniors under guardian care from losing their rights, savings or possessions because a guardian abused their power.”

 

Last April, the Committee held the first hearing in a two-part series this year on the abuse of power and exploitation of older Americans by guardians. The Committee also held a hearing on guardianship in 2016. Today’s hearing is a continuation of the Committee’s longstanding effort to bring awareness and prevention to the financial exploitation of older Americans. 

 

The Committee heard testimony today from four experts on guardianship who offered their insight on ways to improve the system.

Cate Boyko, Senior Court Research Associate at the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), explained that the state court data it collected revealed that none of the states was able to fully report all the information on guardianships they requested.  They found that the most serious issues involved local court authority, lack of standardized reporting, and limited technology.

Bethany Hamm, Acting Commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, provided background information on Maine’s Adult Protect Services and public guardianship program. Ms. Hamm discussed Maine Uniform Probate Code (UPC) enacted during the most recent state legislative session. The Maine UPC will go into effect in July of next year and establishes the private guardians’ duty to report annually on the condition of the adult and account for money and other property in guardians’ possession or subject to guardians’ control.

Karen Buck, Executive Director at the SeniorLAW Center in Pennsylvania, described the work her organization does to address issues such as guardianship through free legal representation, education, and advocacy for older Americans in Pennsylvania.  She argued that guardianship remains an “important tool” to provide care for vulnerable seniors and therefore merits attention and reform. 

Barbara Buckley, Executive Director at the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, discussed the steps that her state has taken since 2014 to better protect individuals under guardianship. In 2015, the Nevada Supreme Court created a Guardianship Commission to examine the guardianship system and recommend reforms.  Ms. Buckley explained three significant areas of reform implemented in Nevada: the right to counsel, the protected person’s Bill of Rights and other statutory reforms, and the establishment of the Guardianship Compliance Office. 


The idea of DEFAULT SDM is to present an idea for a legislative answer to the complex and destructive practice of guardianship and conservatorship in the United States. In addition to presenting our solution to the problem, we try hope to make the following clear in the FAQ page:

 

What exactly is the problem which needs to be addressed?

 

How serious is the problem?

 

Why has the problem not been effectively addressed in the past?

 

Why is this SDM solution going to work where others have failed?

 

and

 

What does the opposition look like?



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