In re J1

Filed 9/9/08 In re J1 CA1/4

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FIRST APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION FOUR

I. Introduction

Petitioner Dominique T. seeks an extraordinary writ (Cal. Rules of Court^[1], rules 8.450, 8.452) to vacate the order of the juvenile court setting a Welfare and Institutions Code^[2]section 366.26 hearing as to her three children J1^[3], J2 and A.S. Petitioner claims she did not receive reasonable reunification services and the court erred in terminating her services after 18 months. We will deny the petition.

II. Facts and Procedural History

In December 2006, the San Francisco Department of Human Services (the Department) took petitioners eight-year-old identical twins J1 and J2, and four-year-old A.S. into protective custody. The Department intervened after a bus driver picked the family up at 10:00 p.m. on December 2, 2006, near Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Petitioner was clearly under the influence of one or more substances and smelled strongly of alcohol. The bus driver called the police to report that petitioner was screaming and banging her head on the window. When interviewed by a social worker, one of the children stated that they were in the water and the water went over her mothers head. The children, who were very wet and cold, were diagnosed with mild hypothermia. A psychological evaluation conducted subsequently concluded that petitioner was at a high risk for self-harm and that there was a strong possibility that petitioner was attempting to commit suicide when she went into the water with her children.

Prior to this incident, records show the family had numerous referrals to Child Protective Services alleging general neglect and emotional abuse. The emotional abuse was related to petitioners volatile, abusive relationships with her male partners. The general neglect was due to petitioners drug use. Petitioner also had serious psychological symptoms such as a history of talking to herself, auditory hallucinations, and religious preoccupation. In addition to allegations of abuse and neglect, there were concerns about the childrens excessive absences from school.

The juvenile court declared the children dependents under section 300, subdivisions (b) (failure to protect) and (g) (no provision for support), committed their care and custody to the Department, and ordered the Department to provide family reunification services with monitored visitation for petitioner.

In conjunction with these proceedings, petitioner participated in a court-ordered evaluation by Amy T. Watt, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist. In her professional opinion, Dr. Watt concluded that [petitioner] currently does not have the ability to provide adequate parenting to her children. The test data from this evaluation indicated petitioner had a full scale IQ of 55, an extremely low level of intellectual functioning. During this evaluation, petitioner acknowledged using crack, heroin and alcohol. Noting that petitioner has great difficulty functioning on her own, Dr. Watt believed [s]he is likely to have limited ability to handle three children as a single mother. . . . Testing indicated many serious psychological symptoms. These symptoms include depression, poor reality testing, delusional ideation, paranoid ideation, possible auditory hallucination, disorganization, and odd behaviors. . . . Dr. Watt concluded petitioner is in great need for psychological treatment as well as medication treatment.

The children were eventually placed with petitioners sister, their maternal aunt. The maternal aunt worked diligently to enroll the children in school, take them to their required medical appointments, and facilitate supervised visitation with petitioner. Since the children moved into their aunts home, the social worker witnessed a marked decrease in their overall anxiety level, and they were doing well in her care.

Petitioner was placed at Walden House, a Dual Diagnosis residential treatment program. She consistently attended her individual therapy sessions and eventually was able to maintain a job. However, petitioners counselor and therapist remained unconvinced that petitioner could maintain stability for long periods of time. It was noted in the report prepared for the 12-month review hearing that petitioners resistance to increasing her medication dosage and her statements that she will discontinue the use of the medication when she leaves Walden House indicate that the mother does not fully realize the severity of her mental health disorder. In addition, the mothers sometimes escalating and odd behaviors during supervised visits with the children are a cause for concern regarding her ability to manage her own mental health.

On November 7, 2007, petitioners supervised visits with the children were temporarily suspended because petitioners religious preoccupation and odd behavior was stressful and confusing for her children. The visitation monitor observed that the girls, especially the twins, often spent much of the visit telling the mother how to behave . . . . Supervised visits were eventually resumed, but petitioner was only permitted to visit one child at a time in a therapeutic setting. Eight such visits took place. However, beginning with the fourth visit, the therapist from Bay Area Children First who was supervising the visits, reported that petitioner began to evidence disorganized behavior, emotionally restricted affect, hypervigilant [and] paranoid thinking, as well as increasingly inappropriate and bizarre behavior in public settings. Due to the recent deteriorations of mothers mental status, Bay Area Children First refused to continue supervising petitioners visits.

In its 12-month status review report for the court, the Department recommended the court terminate petitioners reunification services and set a hearing to select a permanent plan for the children. The maternal aunt was reported to be interested in providing the children with a long-term placement if reunification efforts failed.

In June 2008, the juvenile court conducted a contested 12-month review hearing. Petitioner was not present for the hearing. By the time the hearing was held, 18 months had lapsed, which marked the statutory limit on reunification services. ( 361.5, subd. (a)(3).)

At the hearing, considerable evidence was presented regarding the family history and current attitudes of the children concerning reunification. Petitioners counsel argued that the Department had failed to provide appropriate reunification services because the family had never been referred for court-ordered family therapy.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the juvenile court found the Department had provided reasonable services to petitioner and had made active efforts to return the children to a safe home. The juvenile court pointed out that the major components of petitioners reunification plan required her to address the issues of substance abuse and mental health. The court concluded petitioner had made only moderate progress in this regard and that family therapy during this period of time could not have occurred based on what was occurring with the mother. . . . [I]t was an impossibility . . . . The court terminated petitioners reunification services and set a section 366.26 hearing for October 8, 2008. This petition followed.

III. Discussion

Petitioner contends that the trial courts finding that reasonable reunification services were provided to her was an abuse of its discretion because [w]hat was offered to mother in the form of visitation and family therapy was, owing to her special needs, unreasonable. Specifically, petitioner contends that the Department failed to make a good faith effort to implement reasonable services that could realistically help her reunify with her children within 18 months because it did not (1) implement court-ordered family therapy or (2) find a visitation monitor who could handle mothers special needs.

The juvenile courts decision whether to extend services beyond the 18-month date is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. (Andrea L. v. Superior Court (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 1377, 1388.) As a reviewing court, we will not disturb the courts discretionary ruling, absent a clear abuse of discretion. (In re Stephanie M. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 295, 318.)

As we have noted, at the time of the contested hearing in June 2008, petitioner had already received services beyond the 18-month maximum period. Consequently, further services ordinarily would not be an option at this stage. A juvenile courts statutory options at the 18-month review hearing are either to restore custody of the dependent child to the parents, or terminate reunification services and refer the matter for a section 366.26 hearing. ( 366.22, subd. (a); Mark N. v. Superior Court (1998) 60 Cal.App.4th 996, 1015; Katie V. v. Superior Court (2005) 130 Cal.App.4th 586, 596.)

Despite the maximum 18-month limitation set forth in section 361.5, subdivision (a)(3), the juvenile court may, in rare instances involving exceptional circumstances, continue reunification services beyond the statutory cutoff. (In re N.M. (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 845, 852.) Exceptional circumstances include cases where no reunification services were developed for a parent (In re Dino E. (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1768, 1777), where a reunification plan was developed but not implemented during most of the reunification period (In re Daniel G. (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 1205, 1216), or where the reunification plan fails to accommodate a familys unique hardship such as mental illness or incarceration (In re Elizabeth R. (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 1774, 1790-1792).

As illustrated by these cases, the extraordinary circumstances which militated in favor of extension of family reunification services beyond the 18-month limit . . . uniformly involved some external factor which prevented the parent from participating in the case plan. (Andrea L. v. Superior Court, supra, 64 Cal.App.4th at p. 1388.) Alternatively, when extraordinary special needs are not at issue, the juvenile courts extension of services beyond 18 months is an abuse of discretion and in excess of the courts jurisdiction as limited by statute. (Denny H. v. Superior Court (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1501, 1511; Los Angeles County Dept. of Children etc. Services v. Superior Court (1997) 60 Cal.App.4th 1088, 1091-1092.)

Here, the court correctly recognized the case had reached the 18-month date at which services must be terminated and declined to extend services beyond the statutory maximum. This was not a case of exceptional circumstances in which extending the services beyond 18 months was warranted. (In re N.M., supra, 108 Cal.App.4th at p. 856.) Unlike the parents in In re Dino E., supra, 6 Cal.App.4th 1768, In re Daniel G., supra, 25 Cal.App.4th 1205, and In re Elizabeth R., supra, 35 Cal.App.4th 1774, petitioner received and participated in reunification services tailored to address the reason for the juvenile courts intervention, including a residential treatment program for mental health and substance abuse problems, individual psychiatric counseling for petitioner and all three children, supervised visitation, therapeutic visitation, transportation, parenting classes, and psychological testing.

Despite these services, petitioner asserts her effort to reunify with her children was stymied by the lack of family therapy and by the inability of her service providers to provide adequate mental health support during supervised visitation. From our review of the record, this was not the reason that petitioners reunification efforts failed. Rather, reunification failed because petitioner had not made significant progress in her own therapy to reach the point where realistically she would ever be able to reunify with her children.

While petitioners original case plan contemplated petitioners participation in family therapy, after 18 months of reunification services, petitioner still had not made sufficient progress for family therapy to have been initiated. The social worker testified that as a result of petitioners psychotic behavior, [o]n multiple occasions, all three therapists [for the children] told me they did not believe it was appropriate for the children to begin family therapy at this time. . . . They did not think it was in the childrens best interest. . . .

Moreover, the Department provided evidence that it had made a good faith effort to secure a therapist to supervise petitioners visits with the children. The therapist, who had a masters degree in family therapy, indicated that its very obvious to me that [petitioner] needs a lot more than I could offer even [sic]. After about the fourth supervised visit with the children, the therapist witnessed petitioners different personalities coming through. A lot more agitated. Not willing to receive feedback from me or directives. Bizarre in public. Pulling her children into those kinds of things. The therapist testified she made a decision to end supervised visitation, in part, because I didnt feel safe anymore with mom.

On this record, we cannot conclude the reunification services offered were unreasonable. The standard is not whether the services provided were the best that might be provided in an ideal world, but whether the services were reasonable under the circumstances. (In re Misako R. (1991) 2 Cal.App.4th 538, 547; accord, Katie V. v. Superior Court, supra, 130 Cal.App.4th at pp. 598-599.) The facts here do not support a departure from the statutory mandate for limiting reunification services to a maximum of 18 months.

IV. Disposition

The petition is denied on the merits. ( 366.26 , subd. (l); rule 8.452(i)(l).) The request for stay of the section 366.26 hearing, which is set for October 8, 2008, is denied, and our decision is final as to this court immediately. (Rule 8.264(b)(3).)

_________________________

Ruvolo, P. J.

We concur:

_________________________

Reardon, J.

_________________________

Sepulveda, J.

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^[1] All further undesignated rule references are to the California Rules of Court.

^[2] All further undesignated statutory references are to the

^[3] Because J1 and J2 have identical initials, we adopt and follow the trial courts designation of these minors.