Guardianship is a severe limitation of a person's civil rights and can be a significant barrier to the ideal of self-determination for people with disabilities. North Carolina law and practices are geared to a routine and automatic finding that a person in incompetent and needs a full guardian. There is little consideration of less restrictive alternatives and no requirement that the actual functioning capacity of the person for whom guardianship sought be evaluated before full guardianship is ordered. Families and service providers are unaware of any alternatives.
Within existing North Carolina law however, there are options that can be used to make guardianship procedures more sensitive to individual diversity and choice and create limited guardianships that are more tailored to the strengths and needs of the person for whom guardianship is sought. Limited guardianship is the tool to make this happen, but within our court system, it has not been a user-friendly option.
With a grant from the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities, CLA has established five pilot sites where the Clerk of Superior Court is working with lawyers, human service agencies and advocates to test new forms that make limited guardianship a practical reality for people with disabilities. The forms include a Guardianship Capacity Questionnaire to help families, court officials and agencies determine if a person needs a guardian at all, and if so, how a limited guardianship order can be drafted to address the life domains where the person needs help without infringing on those life domains where they can remain independent.
Copies of the Capacity Questionnaire as well as a Petition for Limited
Guardianship, Notice and Order for Limited Guardianship, Motion for
Limited Guardianship and Letters for Limited Guardianship can be downloaded
below for free.
Guardianship Forms - free for download. Click any of the links below to begin dowloading.
(Documents will open in a new window.)