Aid in guardianship process
AKRON: Buckingham, Doolittle, and Burroughs teamed up with Community Legal Aid to provide assistance in filing for and processing guardianship requests.
Shelley Walker, director of social work at Akron Children’s Hospital, who is coordinating the project, said children with disabilities have a parent or guardian who cares for them, but, when the child turns 18, the responsibility falls to them.
“Guardianship is the answer for these families,” she said. “It legally allows another adult appointed by the court to make decisions for the young adult’s medical, financial and other needs.”
The Guardianship Project is an expansion of Legal Aid’s medical-legal partnership HEAL (Health Education Advocacy and Law). The law firm has collaborated with Akron Children’s Hospital for the past several years on this project, which is how it identified guardianship as an area of need.
When the hospital determines there is a need for a guardian, Legal Aid’s team of intake specialists and paralegals screens clients and collects basic information. Then, the case is sent to Buckingham and assigned to an attorney.
