Determining Factors?

What is the name of your state? Idaho

My sister in law was arrested for a felony a few weeks ago. After being booked, she called her parents, who went to her home to retrieve her two baby daughters from the 4 underage teenagers who'd been "hanging out" at her home basically nonstop for weeks. She claims not to have committed the crime. But, she confessed to it after, according to her, having been pushed and pressured and harassed to by the security guards where the burglary was committed. So far, she has only been arraigned. Her court date is supposed to be tomorrow, but we're now not sure if it is or not.

Back to the point, things are not looking good for her from a legal standpoint. The judge told her at the arraignment that she was probably facing at least two years if she's convicted. I'm curious what's going to happen with the babies. Right now, they are still with their grandparents (my husband's parents). However, I personally don't feel that's a long term solution. They are both in poor health and have trouble getting around. I also don't honestly think they'd ever pass a home inspection. Right now, the younger girl is sleeping in a playpen in the grandparents room with them, and the youngest is in a toddler bed, sharing a room with their teenage son. They have a 3rd bedroom, but it's so full of stuff that it's unusable.

Two other brothers and their respective wives are willing to take the girls. However, each couple already have 3 children apiece, and both brothers have rather unsavory criminal histories. The younger of these brothers has only been married for a month or two.

My husband and I would love to have the girls. We're not rich and we're not perfect. But, we know we can provide them a stable and loving home. We're in our mid-twenties, have been married for nearly a decade, have no criminal backgrounds or history with CPS. We're moving into a three bedroom home later this week, so we would have a spare room to, at the very least, be able to help with the girls. We were planning to move anyway before all of this happened, but decided to look for a 3 bedroom place once this all happened.

Neither of the girl's fathers are in the picture, and are making no attempts to be even with their mother sitting in jail.

So, if she is indeed convicted, what's going to happen with the girls? Will child services automatically step in to start determining where the girls should end up, or will one of us have to call them to prompt them? Also, what are going to be the determining factors in the home inspection, finances, etc? What are they looking for in the home inspection?

Thank you in advance. I realize how very preemptive this is, and that this may all be for naught if by some miracle the charges are reduced or she's found innocent. But, I can't help worrying about my nieces. Their mother has been unstable, for as long as I've known her (and she wasn't even a teenager when my husband and I started dating). While we all hoped for the best once she had the girls, we were prepared for the worst. It's always been one of those situations where it's just bad enough to make you cringe when you're watching from the sidelines, but not quite bad enough for social services to really step in, until now.What is the name of your state?

Have you spoken to your SIL and the childrens' grandparents about you taking custody if SIL is convicted?

That should be your first step, if something can be worked out, your SIL can do a simple guardianship, and then the state won't even need to be involved.

We're going to visit my sister in law tonight and ask what's going on with her court date and what her intentions/desires are for the children if she's convicted. She asked my husband and I to be the god parents when each of the girls was born. However, this isn't in writing. Prior to all this happening, she made jokes about not wanting to put it in writing because she was afraid that we'd try to bump her off to get the girls. Of course, now this has gone quite far beyond being a laughing matter and she needs to make some choices.

I'm still curious though, what will they be evaluating us on in order to grant guardianship, custody, etc?

SaraRae said:

We're going to visit my sister in law tonight and ask what's going on with her court date and what her intentions/desires are for the children if she's convicted. She asked my husband and I to be the god parents when each of the girls was born. However, this isn't in writing. Prior to all this happening, she made jokes about not wanting to put it in writing because she was afraid that we'd try to bump her off to get the girls. Of course, now this has gone quite far beyond being a laughing matter and she needs to make some choices.

I'm still curious though, what will they be evaluating us on in order to grant guardianship, custody, etc?

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Since CPS is not currently involved, its unlikely that they would get involved unless someone requested that they do so. Therefore no, if mom voluntarily gave guardianship to a family member, there would not normally be any kind of evaluation.

We went to visit her last night. Apparently her preliminary hearing is this morning. My husband asked her where she wanted the girls to be living long term if this didn't go the way she hopes. She said she hasn't thought that far ahead because she's still hoping she'll get off. So, that didn't help much.

By the looks of it, it's going to be a moot point. She managed to plead down to petty theft. So, now we all just get to go back to sitting on the sidelines cringing, again.