In the Matter of W. Q., a Child. DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES, Petitioner-Respondent, v. V. A. R., Appellant.
Wallowa County Circuit Court 16JU10116, 17JU09739; A170264 (Control), A170265
Oregon Court of Appeals
Argued and submitted November 5, reversed and remanded December 26, 2019
301 Or App 565 | 456 P3d 681
Thomas B. Powers, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Sarah Peterson, Deputy Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. Also on the briefs was Shannon Storey, Chief Defеnder, Juvenile Appellate Section, Office of Public Defense Services.
Inge D. Wells, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for respondent. Also on the brief were Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, and Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General.
Before Lagesen, Presiding Judge, and Egan, Chief Judge, and Powers, Judge.
Reversed and remanded.
Mother appeals permanency judgments changing the permanency plan for her 13-year-old son, W, from reunification to placement with a fit and willing relative. She contends that the juvenile court erred when it determined that the Department of Human Services made reasonable efforts to reunify W with mother as required by
Absent exceptions not applicable here, to change W‘s permanency plan from reunification to placement with a fit and willing relative under
Here, the particular circumstances of the case preclude the conclusion that DHS‘s efforts to reunify W with mother were reasonable, by and large because those circumstances show that DHS‘s efforts did not afford mother
The juvenile court tоok jurisdiction over W as to mother in March 2017 based on mother‘s hostile relationship with father and her lack of the parenting skills needed to manage W‘s needs:
“Mother and Father fight verbally and physically when the child is present. This causes an esсalation in the child‘s destructive and sometimes violent behavior, placing the child and the parents at risk of harm.
“*****
“[W] is a special needs child with multiple issues. Mother lacks the parenting skills to cope with the child‘s issues and ensure the child‘s safety.”
By the time of the permanency hearing in December 2018, parents had long been separated, and no one contended that their current relationship posed a barrier to reunification. Instead, the focus at the hearing was on DHS‘s efforts to assist mother in acquiring the parenting skills needed to parent W, and whether those efforts were reasonable, as well as on mother‘s progress toward becoming a minimally adequate parent. Noting that the case was comрlicated by, among other things, the facts that both mother and W “have serious developmental disabilities” and that mother has both “cognitive limitations” and “mental health issues that may affect her ability to take advantage of parenting suppоrt services,” the court cataloged the services provided to mother over the life of the case and, ultimately, concluded that they represented reasonable efforts by DHS. In the juvenile court‘s view, the services were designed to account for mother‘s intellectual and developmental limitations and were appropriately evaluated and recalibrated over the life of the case.
On appeal, mother contests that conclusion.2 Although she does not dispute that DHS provided her with a number оf services (services which, mother points out, she
DHS, nonetheless, did not provide that type of training for most of the life of the case. Instead, it offered parenting training through Skype visits with a provider who, when discharging mother from the program in January 2018, echoed Sweet‘s recommendations, explaining that mother needed more visitation and “[h]ands on observation and parenting instruction.” Not until September 2018 did DHS begin to provide the rеcommended training, and then only after the juvenile court ordered it to do so in June of that year: “The court finds that 4 hours per month (2 visits twice a month) is not sufficient to attain the goal of the plan. Therefore[,] DHS is ordered to increase the аmount of visitation and combine it with parent training in an amount that is optimum to attain the goal of the current plan.”
As a result of the delay, mother had had only five sessions of hands-on parenting training by the time of the permanency hearing. This, in mother‘s view, did not give her the opportunity to become a minimally adequate parent required by
Responding to mother‘s argument, DHS does not appear to argue that its efforts to supply training met the standard articulatеd in S. M. H.3 DHS acknowledges that in-person parent training was recommended early in the case but that “it took some time to arrange in-person parent training for mother and [W]” in view of the distance between Salem, where W‘s foster home is located, and Wallowa County, where mother lives.4 Rather than arguing that its efforts gave mother a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate that she could be a minimally adequate parent for W, DHS argues that we should conclude that its effоrts were reasonable because, in its view, mother‘s intellectual disability so impairs her ability to parent that she will never be able to parent W: “[T]he real barrier to reunification in this case is mother‘s own intellectual disability, and her resulting inability tо understand how to manage [W‘s] behaviors and meet his significant special needs.” DHS argues further that, “despite mother‘s bond with [W], the parent-training offered by DHS could not assist her in overcoming her own deficits in order to appreciate the level of care [W] requires.”
We agree with mother that, under the circumstances of this case, DHS‘s efforts do not meet the standard articulated in our case law. From June 2017 on, DHS was aware that, given mother‘s intellectual disability and W‘s disability and needs, hands-on parenting training was required if mother was to develop the skills needed to parent W with minimal adequacy. Yet, with little in the way of explanation,
DHS‘s argument that mother‘s intellectual disability is an insurmountable barrier to reunification does not provide a basis for concluding the contrary. That argument is, in effect, that reasonable efforts—that is, efforts that will give mother a reasonable opportunity to demonstrate that she can become a minimally adequate parent—will be futile because of mother‘s intellectual disability. But, as mother points out, if DHS perceives insurmountable obstacles to reunification, it may seek to be relieved from the obligation to make reasonable reunification efforts under
Reversed and remanded.