dfcs has custody of my grand daughter and I want to sue for guardianship

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grandma_donna

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My three year grand daughter has spent three days to four days a week with me since she was nine months old. Her older brother has lived with me full time since he was seven. He is now 16. I have guardianship of him. My grand daughter was at my home when sheriff's deputies came and got herat ten oclock at night with a dfcs worker waiting at the top of my private subdivision. the dfcs worker said that my daughter was suspected of having posted nude pictures of her on the internet. the worker told me that they would take her back to her mother if no evidence of that was found on my daughter's computer which she had given to the fbi voluntarily. There were never any nude pictures found but dfcs still retains custody of my grand daughter. I have been involved in a lawsuit with the developer of the subdivision I live in and for complicated reasons including the permit office official taking bribes from the developer, I don't have a certificate of occupancy on my home. I complied with everything that dfcs wanted from me to be able to have my grand daughter placed with me and my daughter even offered to surrender her parental rights and let me have custody of the child, but dfcs refused to let her do that and they won't let her be placed with me because of the piece of paper from the county. My grand daughter is currently placed with her cousin but there are problems involved in that placement and my grand daughter wants to live with me if she can't live with her mother. I feel that it would be in the child't best interests to be with me and her brother as they are also very close and I have been able to care for him over the years and still help him to maintain a good and healthy relationship with his mother and would be the best qualified person to do that for my grand daughter as well. dfcs, however, has taken the position that they want that piece of paper from the county and feel that my grand daughter's emotional well being is irrelevant in the matter. I want to challenge dfcs on this and apply for guardianship of my grand daughter but the casa representative has told me that "it's the judge's job to do what dfcs tells him to do and you will only risk having dfcs cut off all of your visits with the child if you challenge them on this". This same casa worker told me also that if I insist on getting the Cherokee Nation involved in the situation(my great grandmother was Cherokee and I have raised my children and grandchilren with Cherokee ways and ideals) that the Cherokee Nation will take my grand child to another state and my daughter and I won't be able to visit her. My grand daughter is unhappy where she is and there is a problem in the home where she is involving another child there that I consider potentially harmful to my grand daughter and she is currently in the position of being told that she must defend herself physically against this larger stronger male child rather than the child's mother telling him that he isn't allowed to attack her physically. My grand daughter has been taught that it's unacceptable to use violence and doesn't know how to cope. My question is this. Do I have any chance of success with getting guardianship of my grand daughter or will I only risk having dfcs take her and put her back in foster care if I try? She has expressed fear of going back there and told me about numerous nightmares about it.
 
Where is her father? You really need an attorney to help you file for guardianship or legal custody. I do not know if the Indian Child welfare eact comes into play here but it doesn't sound like the child is considered Indian. The CASA representative probably is not qualified to give youlegal advice, so I would be calling around to an attorney to see if anyone is willing to help you.
 
her father has never been legitimized and has never been part of her life at all. the cherokee nation says that they can help me if I enroll my daughter and grand daughter and that they do consider my grand daughter to be cherokee, but I have a long process of verifying the bloodline as I never imagined it would be necessary to do so.
 
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