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My sister-in-law was in a horrible car accident Oct 8th and is still in the hospital. It looks like it will be several weeks until she's able to go home. We have her 2 younger kids. They are a girl (11), and a boy (8). Their dad's rights were taken away a while back. They have a 17 year old sister who lives elsewhere. My husband and I plan on being foster parents in a couple years so I've been on this site. This isn't how we planned it. She only has a 60% chance of making it out of the hospital. I hope and pray for full recovery. We have no legal guardianship. I'm terrified that if the worst happens the state will come and place the kids with strangers. I'm also scared that if I try to get licensed that I'll be rejected for whatever reason and they'll take the kids. Any advice? Their mom fully approves them being with us and I'm not sure how to proceed.

In this case, it's really not necessary to file for legal guardianship.. Your sister in law should do a general power of attorney so that you can make decisions for her children while she is in the hospital. Since she's expected to go home in a few weeks, legal guardianship would not be required. That is a much more permanent solution for when parents cannot care for their kids due to things like drug abuse or more severe situations.

Since you are caring for her kids, you need to be able to get them medical treatment if necessary, make any school decisions or sign off on say sports permission etc.

In preparing for the worst, if your sister is able to and desires to, she can sign a statement that her children should be raised by you if she dies. While you cannot legally will a child, parents do designate who should be a legal guardian and that is often abided by. (unless another family member would contest it)

Social services would not want to remove her kids from you unless there was a valid reason to do so. Contrary to belief, they are not out to break up families and actually want children to remain with families.

To be on the safe side of many things though, I would likely draw up a general Power of Attorney form and go from there. You can talk to an attorney as well and see what they recommend. I personally would not do a Legal Guardianship though because that is pretty permanent.