Title: [IN] Kinship guardianship visitation question
Question:Hello all. I am in Indianapolis, Indiana. My sister was recently arrested for a domestic dispute with her boyfriend. She has twin babies that are eight months old. Long story short, she has a long criminal history and the babies were placed in foster care by DCS. I have obtained kinship guardianship of both children and they are currently living with me. 

The issue I am having is with my sister's father (we have different dads) and his wife. Let's call him Scott. Scott is a convicted child molestor. He is also an alcoholic who gets drunk and beats his wife. I was around 5 when he was married to my mom and I witnessed him to do the same to her. He would get drunk, they would argue, and he would beat the hell out of her. Some of the more extreme examples that I remember include him hitting her in the head with a 2x4 and her having to get stitches, busting a beer bottle across her face and breaking her nose, pouring boiling hot soup water on her, and repeatedly slamming her face against the counter making her eye so black that she wore an eye patch for weeks. Mostly what I remember though is waking up in the middle of the night to my mom screaming and crying and running to find her just to see him mounted on top of her punching her in the face repeatedly and seeing her face covered in blood. These experiences have had lasting trauma on me and my sisters as you can probably imagine. 

Anyways, Scott and is wife are requesting to see the babies. I am obviously not allowing them to. However, I am worried that they are going to contact DCS and force me to. 

It seems pretty obvious that DCS should be on my side and allow me to keep the children from him. However, they gave approval to my sister to allow her to live at his house with them! As I mentioned previously, she has a long criminal history and has had issues with DCS in the past. While under investigation by DCS, she moved into her dads house and brought the babies with her. DCS completed their investigation, which included an inspection of his house, and deemed it a SAFE environment for her to raise her children, despite his criminal past! 

That is part of the reason I am worried that they are going to force me to let him see the babies. I have read the documentation I was given about kinship guardianship in Indiana, but it seems to only specify policies for visitation with the children's biological parents. I am wondering if I have any rights to block him from having visitation? Does he even have any right to see the children under kinship guardianship? If DCS does tell me to let him see them, will I get arrested if I refuse? I am unsure of my rights in this situation. 
Answer #1: Unless he has a court order allowing visitation you can prevent him from coming to see the kids. I would speak to an attorney if you're able to afford it to help protect yourself and the babies.
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