Office of Public Guardian with its head in the sand

Author anonymous

In the continuing saga of Brandy Black, a disabled young woman adopted from a state foster care system and is now under the supervision of the Vermont Office of Public Guardian (VT OPG), the State of Vermont Assistant Attorney General continues to adopt an “Ostrich” approach to addressing the well documented challenges facing Brandy.    It is simply easier to bury one’s head in the sand or, better yet, feign interest in seeking the truth about Brandy’s capacity to care for herself.   As mentioned in our last commentary (“Vermont Legal Aid – A Parents Blackhole”), the initial conclusion of the court appointed mental health evaluator was that Brandy did not have the capacity to meet any of the six basic life skill functions that are often assigned to a public guardian.  

So what has changed? The Blacks were shocked when one year later the very same evaluator suddenly agreed with the OPG that they no longer needed to serve as a guardian for Brandy. This evaluator stated that she has performed more than 500 evaluations of this nature for the State of Vermont over the past twenty years. This averages out to about 25 per year, making the State of Vermont a reliable source of income for her. When questioned by the judge why her conclusions changed, the independent evaluator simply stated that Brandy no longer wanted a guardian. Yet this condition was also true at the time of the first evaluation. A follow-up question from the judge probed further. Does Brandy’s capacity to care for herself still qualify for OPG services? The evaluator’s response was yes, Brandy would benefit from these OPG services. But Brandy does not want them, so the services should be discontinued.   

How ironic. The evaluator concluded that Brandy does not have the capacity to make decisions in various basic life situations and would qualify for OPG services, but agrees with the OPG’s decision to terminate the public guardianship because Brandy does not want to be under a guardianship.

The representative from Vermont Legal Aid supported this circular reasoning. After all, isn’t it true that merely saying “I don’t want someone making decisions with me” demonstrates that Brandy is in fact able to make her own decisions? Sure, especially when you can add a qualifying statement like “we can’t guarantee that these will be good decisions” to appease one’s conscience and justify the OPG decision to dissolve the guardianship. How absurd. Keep in mind that Brandy’s parents agreed to relinquish their court appointed guardianship in lieu of the OPG assuming this role for Brandy. Nevermind. Just bury your head in the sand and go to sleep. Brandy can fend for herself (wink, wink, blink, blink). But how well will the Blacks sleep?

Editor’s note: the situation described above is known to be factually accurate. All names are pseudonyms at the author’s request.