Abstract
The available literature on guardianship suggests that this legal device has a poor benefit/burden ratio for individual wards, yet there are 11,147 persons allegedly in need of a guardian in Florida. Florida has begun to test a public guardianship response to this need. Florida's comparison of volunteer and professional models of public guardianship suggests that volunteers are no panacea to guardianship problems. Public guardianship programs risk the self-aggrandizing position of both petitioning for adjudication of incompetency and serving as guardian, the conflict-of-interest position of being part of a social service agency, inadequate staffing and funding, and vague guardianship criteria and lax procedures.
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