IN RE TERM OF PARENTAL RIGHTS AS TO A.N.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶2 In August 2023, Mother gave birth to Child in Colorado.1
¶3 In October 2024, Mother was arrested in Colorado after a police officer learned during a traffic stop that she was subject to a Florida extradition warrant for violating her probation for felony grand theft. The arrest also led to Mother incurring new criminal charges in Colorado after an inventory search of her car revealed drugs and drug paraphernalia.
¶4 Upon her arrest, Mother asked her longtime friends, a mother and daughter living together in Arizona (collectively or individually, the “Placement Family“), to care for Child. The Placement Family agreed and brought Child to their Arizona home.
¶5 In November 2024, Mother was released to a sober-living home in Colorado. Mother called the Placement Family almost daily to talk to Child until the end of 2024. Starting in January 2025, however, Mother‘s calls became sporadic.
¶6 In March 2025, Mother reported Child as a missing person because the Placement Family, citing safety concerns, had refused her request to return Child. Law enforcement promptly investigated and notified DCS of the situation. In mid-March, DCS initiated a dependency action in juvenile court and kept Child with the Placement Family. Almost immediately thereafter, Mother became incarcerated in Colorado and the juvenile court entered an order adopting the parties’ agreement that Mother would receive at least four hours a week of supervised virtual visitation with Child.
¶7 Mother was extradited to Florida to serve a 2.5-year prison term for the felony probation violation. In July 2025, the juvenile court held a hearing and found Child dependent as to Mother based on neglect. At
¶8 DCS did not, however, ever provide visitation or speak directly with Mother about that or any other issue. Even after Mother filed a pro per motion in September 2025 reiterating her visitation request and identifying the name and cost of the prison‘s visitation system, DCS did not arrange the service.
¶9 DCS contacted the prison about visitation in December 2025, the month after the juvenile court changed the case plan and DCS moved to terminate Mother‘s parental rights based on the length of her felony sentence. The prison immediately responded to DCS‘s inquiry. A prison officer identified the prison‘s virtual visitation system and explained that once an application was completed and approved for Child, Mother could have visitation on a tablet for a fee. The officer added that telephone calls also could be arranged.
¶10 DCS did not promptly follow up on the information from the prison. A new DCS case manager was assigned to Mother‘s case in late January 2026. About a week before the early-March 2026 termination adjudication hearing, the new case manager spoke to her supervisor about the prison‘s visitation system and was told that DCS “[doesn‘t] use that system.”
¶11 DCS did make efforts to communicate with Mother. The original case worker spoke to prison staff as early as July 2025 to ensure that Mother was aware of how to contact DCS. The case worker also emailed the prison warden multiple times and mailed Mother several service letters starting in, at the latest, September 2025. At least one of the letters listed visitation as a service in which Mother needed to participate and invited Mother to contact the case manager by phone or email if she had questions. But Mother never reached out to DCS.
¶12 Further, after March 2025, Mother never contacted Child through the Placement Family even though DCS had authorized such continuing contact, the Placement Family‘s phone number and address never changed, and the Placement Family testified that they remained willing to facilitate communication. Although Mother did place one call to the Placement Family at some point, the Placement Family testified that during that call Mother neither discussed Child nor asked to speak to her. Similarly, although Mother mailed one letter to the Placement Family which she claimed included content for Child, she did not make any
¶13 Mother is projected to be released from the Florida prison early, in December 2026. Upon her release, however, she will be extradited to Colorado to be tried on the new drug-related charges, which may result in four to eight years’ imprisonment. She also may face one to three years’ imprisonment for violating her federal probation. The case manager further testified, and Mother agreed, that when Mother is released she will need additional time to demonstrate her sobriety.
¶14 Mother testified that she believed she would receive minimal additional prison time for her Colorado and federal cases. She also testified that though the Florida prison would not allow her to enroll in classes when she arrived there because she was pregnant, she began participating in substance-abuse and parenting programs soon after she gave birth. She had not completed any of the programs as of the time of trial.
¶15 Mother explained that her decreased pre-dependency contact with Child was due to her feeling very ill from her pregnancy, and she claimed the interlude lasted for “only like three weeks” and “was the only time I didn‘t have contact.” And as to her post-dependency contact, Mother testified that when she called the Placement Family, they told her she needed to get DCS‘s permission to speak to Child. According to Mother, she called DCS multiple times but got no answer and there was no option to leave a voicemail.
¶16 After considering the evidence, the juvenile court granted termination under
¶17 We have jurisdiction over Mother‘s timely appeal under
DISCUSSION
¶18 To terminate parental rights, the juvenile court must find by clear and convincing evidence that a ground for termination exists under
¶19 Section 8-533(B)(4) provides for termination when “the parent is deprived of civil liberties due to the conviction of a felony” and “the sentence of that parent is of such length that the child will be deprived of a normal home for a period of years.” The parent‘s physical absence is not dispositive for purposes of
¶20 As part of its analysis, the court must determine whether DCS provided reasonable reunification services. Unlike some other subsections of
¶21 Here, Mother repeatedly requested visitation and there was no claim or specter that visitation would endanger Child. Nonetheless, the juvenile court found that DCS‘s failure to provide visitation did not require termination because DCS made some efforts, DCS faced logistical challenges due to Mother‘s out-of-state incarceration, and Mother refused to communicate with DCS or with Child through the willing Placement Family. We may not disregard the juvenile court‘s factual findings unless they are unsupported by reasonable evidence or inference, Brionna J. v. Dep‘t of Child Safety, 255 Ariz. 471, 478, ¶ 30 (2023), and we may not reweigh the evidence or reassess witness credibility, see Alma S., 245 Ariz. at 151-52, ¶¶ 18-19. But we must not affirm a termination order that is clearly erroneous, id. at 151, ¶ 18, or that rests upon a misapplication of the law, Timothy B., 252 Ariz. at 474, ¶ 14.
¶22 We must vacate this termination order. By virtually ignoring Mother‘s request for visitation with Child, we cannot say that DCS fulfilled its constitutional obligation to make reasonable efforts to provide that essential service. The juvenile court correctly found that DCS communicated with prison staff and sent letters to Mother, and that DCS was challenged by Mother‘s incarceration in a Florida prison with unfamiliar technology. But the court erroneously failed to consider the lethargic pace of DCS‘s visitation-specific efforts—a fact highly relevant to those efforts’ reasonableness. Despite the parties’ March 2025 agreement and a court order, DCS made no effort to arrange visitation during Mother‘s incarceration in Colorado. Then, after Mother arrived at the Florida prison, DCS took no action on Mother‘s repeated visitation requests until it reached out to the prison in December 2025. And DCS made no effort to follow up on the prison‘s immediate response until late February or early March 2026, just before the termination hearing.
¶23 The court blamed Mother for her failure to communicate with DCS. Certainly, DCS‘s duty to preserve the parent-child relationship “has limits” and “[t]here always comes a point where the trial court must decide whether the natural parent is making a good-faith effort to reunite the family.” In re Maricopa Cnty. Juv. Action Nos. JS-4118/JD-529, 134 Ariz. 407, 409 (App. 1982). But as a preliminary matter, DCS must meet its constitutional standard. See Jessie D., 251 Ariz. at 581-82, ¶¶ 20-21. Here, Mother unambiguously notified DCS of her desire for visitation through her repeated requests in court, and she even specifically identified the visitation system that would need to be used. Further, DCS was well-aware of Mother‘s whereabouts, and her failure to reach out posed no impediment to DCS working with the staff at her prison to set up the service. On this
¶24 Nor was DCS‘s conduct justified by Mother‘s refusal to continue her contact with Child through the Placement Family. To be sure, evidence showed that Mother‘s voluntarily decreased contact with Child was inadequately explained. Even before her incarceration, Mother significantly reduced her contact with Child for no reason other than not feeling well. Then, after the incarceration, she stopped all contact with Placement Family inexplicably. Though Mother testified that the Placement Family conditioned her continued contact on her obtaining DCS approval, the Placement Family testified otherwise and the court expressly discounted Mother‘s account of her efforts to call DCS. But though Mother‘s decision not to continue her relationship with Child through the Placement Family might have belied the sincerity of her visitation requests, her conduct did not absolve DCS of its constitutional duty to act. Even accepting DCS‘s argument that it is not required to provide duplicative services to incarcerated parents,2 DCS did not show that the contact available through the Placement Family was equivalent to the visitation Mother requested. Nor did DCS ever tell Mother that was the case or act as though it was.
¶25 We are mindful of our deferential standard of review. But on this record, we cannot affirm the termination order. DCS‘s constitutional obligation to reasonably endeavor to provide Mother with visitation was inexcusably unfulfilled.
¶26 We vacate the termination of Mother‘s parental rights and remand for DCS to develop a reasonable reunification plan that provides Mother visitation. Nothing prevents DCS from pursuing termination in the future if warranted.