When do I need to seek a permanent guardianship?

A permanent guardianship can be sought in two instances. It might follow the granting of an emergency temporary guardianship when the reason for the initial petition is ongoing. In other words, it’s lasting past the 90 days, or it’s lasting past the 180 days that was initially granted for the emergency temporary guardianship. And obviously if we’re going for emergency temporary guardianship it’s because there’s an emergency, and we need to get in quick, and we need to get control of the situation. A permanent guardianship might be granted where there’s not such an emergency situation, but the person’s inability to make rational decisions for themselves is ongoing. For instance, somebody who suffers from mental illness, and has done for many years, that person in all likelihood isn’t going to be able to make rational decisions in a very short period of time, in other words during the period of the ETC, the emergency temporary guardianship. And therefore we’re going to ask a court to give us long term control over that person’s finances, long term control over that person’s medical decisions. And so that might be the second reason for asking for a permanent guardianship.