Guardianship

​In order to be appointed as a guardian for your adult child with developmental disabilities, your adult child will need to be determined to be "incapacitated" by the court.  This means that they are unable to make some or all important life decisions and will lose civil rights.  For this reason the guardianship process should only be used as a last resort for the most severe cases.  ​

If the person needing guardianship has an open dependency case, their guardianship may be filed in the county where the person resides or the county that has jurisdiction in the dependency case.

Common guardianship terms

Who can be a guardian
Click here to view common terms used by the court during the guardianship process.
​The state of Florida has set requirements for who is allowed to be a guardian.  Please click here to review them.

Additional Tools

Want to learn about Supported Decision-Making and get ideas about how to incorporate it into guardianship?

Next: How the guardianship process differs from the other options