Legal Question in Family Law in Maryland

Re: Obligations of guardians

What happens in the situation you have described is not very pleasant for anyone. If parents feel they are unable to manage the responsibilities of parents and enforce rules laid down for their child, the parents and child will end up in court proceedings involving the Department of Social Services. I will not try to describe a process by which this happens, because there are too many variations on the process. If the parents have had the child taken from them, if the child has run away from the parents, or if the parents have thrown up their hands and told the child to leave, the child will spend some time in foster care or under the jurisdiction of the court in an institution. There will be a hearing, called a "CINA hearing" at which the court will determine whether the child is a "Child In Need of Assistance," and sometime later there will be another hearing, called a disposition hearing, at which the court makes a decision about what to do with the child in need of assistance. It may be a foster home, it may be a return to the parents with supervision through Social Services, or in some cases it will be extended institutional care for the child. There is no simple answer that covers all of the possible outcomes.