Sister Gets A “paycheck” For Being The “caretaker” Of Her Disabled Adult Daughter.. But She Is Not Caring For Her Like She Should.

Location: VA, USA

So, my niece is 21 years old with cerebral palsy and is nonverbal and unable to move on her own. She needs round the clock care, diaper changes, meals, etc.

Two years ago, my sister became a widow and was left to care for my oldest niece (who is the subject of this post) and her 4 younger children (ages 17, 14, 12, 11). Naturally, this meant working would become awful for her so my cousin and I did a ton of research and found that the govt will essentially pay 21f’s guardian (my mother+sister in this case) to pay a caretaker for her care.

So we got all that worked out and my mother fills out a timesheet on a govt website so that my sister is paid out every two weeks without having to work AND take care of the kids…

Except my sister doesn’t really do much. Although my niece is technically an adult, her high school was still allowing her to come to school and take classes… instead, because my sister didn’t want to keep “getting up early” to get my niece washed and ready, she stopped sending her. On the days she does send my niece to school, she has bad hygienic odor and is dressed terribly, but sprayed with perfume. As a result, last month, her teachers reported my sister to adult social services because she’s either never at school OR she smells bad when she goes.

My sister plays video games all day, changes my nieces diaper MAYBE twice in a day, does a quick wash-up with wipes that is NOT effective (niece has an active menstruation cycle), and only feeds her liquid Pediasure in sippy cups - no real meals, nothing solid despite the fact that my niece will and can chew when food is given to her.

My mother, being the other guardian, handles EVERYTHING else. All the kids’ school paperwork, she’s the point of contact for all doctors and takes my niece (and the other kids) to their appointments, and is pretty much their parent. My sister does nothing but collect a check and verbally abuse the kids when she’s not in a good mood - ironically, the only real times she’s nice to them is when she’s drunk. Then she’s in a good mood.

My point is this: the adult social services sent someone to do a check and decided everything was fine appearance wise, and that was over a month ago and they haven’t been back since. I’d honestly hate to put my sister in a position where she can’t pay her bills but it’s just not right how horribly my niece is living day to day. My sister is able bodied and can work for a paycheck just fine, my mom is always home so there’s no need for childcare outside of my disabled niece. (She actually quit her job a few years back when she was kicked out of the house by the kids’ dad but came back after their dad was diagnosed with cancer - rode his back and abused him verbally until the day he died. She can work just fine, she just has it easy now so it’s not even a thought to her.)

Is there anything I can do here? I think they should hire an actual caretaker who will actually put in the 40 hours to care for my niece and my mother is getting older and older and having one surgery after the next, so she’s not even mobile herself right now. I’m my mother’s caretaker right now, actually.

Sorry for the long post! TLDR; is there anything I can do here for my niece who could be properly cared for, but isn’t, without uprooting the entire family?