Wards of the State: A National Study of Public Guardianship is a new report by the University of Kentucky and the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging. Funded by The Retirement Research Foundation, the report marks the first nationwide examination of public guardianship in 25 years - since the landmark study by Prof. Winsor Schmidt and colleagues, Public Guardianship and the Elderly, published in 1981. 

Public guardianship is the appointment and responsibility of a public official or publicly funded organization to serve as legal guardian in the absence of willing and responsible family members or friends to serve as, or in the absence of resources to employ, a private guardian. Since the 1960s, states and localities have developed a variety of mechanisms to address this "unbefriended" population, often serving as "guardian of last resort." 

The new report is the result of a comprehensive review of existing literature and law, a national survey of key contacts in all 51 jurisdictions concerning public guardianship programs and practices (with a 100% response rate), in-depth interviews in seven states, and extensive site visits in three states (Florida, Kentucky, Illinois). The report includes a statutory chart, case summary, and bibliography; findings from the national survey, case studies of seven states, a brief state-by-by listing of public guardianship profiles, a map of public guardianship models, conclusions, recommendations, and a set of hallmarks of an effective public guardianship program.

The 10-page Executive Summary and the full 168-page report are available on the Web sites of the University of Kentucky, Graduate Center for Gerontology at http://www.mc.uky.edu/gerontology and the ABA Commission on Law and Aging at http://www.abanet.org/aging. 

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