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Legal Information: Texas

Custody

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Updated: 
July 28, 2023

What are the rights and responsibilities of a person, other than the parent, who is made a conservator?

If a nonparent, licensed child-placing agency or the Department of Family and Protective Services1 is appointed conservator, they are given a number of rights and responsibilities, including:

  • the right to have physical possession and to direct the moral and religious training of the child;
  • the responsibility of care, control, protection, and reasonable discipline of the child;
  • the responsibility to provide the child with clothing, food, shelter, education, and medical, psychological, and dental care;
  • the right to consent for the child to medical, psychiatric, psychological, dental, and surgical treatment and to have access to the child’s medical records; and
  • the right to designate the primary residence of the child and to make decisions about the child’s education.2

1 See Tex. Fam. Code § 102.003(7),(6)
2 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.371