Stephanie K. v. Superior Court

Filed 7/25/06 Stephanie K. v. Superior Court CA2/2

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

California Rules of Court, rule 977(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 977(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 977.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT

DIVISION TWO

ORIGINAL PROCEEDING; petition for writ of mandate. Jan Levine, Judge. Petition denied.

Linda Simmons for Petitioner.

No appearance for Respondent.

Children's Law Center of Los Angeles, Tamalani Barnett for the Minor.

Raymond G. Fortner, Jr., County Counsel, Larry Cory, Assistant County Counsel, and Jacklyn K. Louie, Deputy County Counsel, for Real Party in Interest.

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Stephanie K. filed a petition for extraordinary relief, pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 38.1. She contends the juvenile court's order terminating reunification services and setting a Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26^[1] permanency planning hearing for her 16-month-old daughter V. (born Dec., 2004) and finding she had received reasonable reunification services is not supported by substantial evidence. We deny the petition.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On August 29, 2005, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) filed a dependency petition on behalf of then 8-month-old Vanity. The court ordered the minor detained and ordered DCFS to provide reunification services to Mother, including referrals to domestic violence counseling, substance abuse treatment with testing, parenting classes, and of transportation funds for visitation and reunification.

On September 21, 2005, Mother made her first appearance and submitted the matter on DCFS's social study report.

Mother's submission included a waiver of rights that stated that she understood that if she failed to participate regularly in court-ordered treatment, services could be terminated and the court could make a permanent plan for V. that included termination of parental rights and placement for adoption. The waiver also stated that a maximum of 12 months of reunification services could be provided in the case of a child of V.'s age.

The petition was sustained, with grounds for dependency jurisdiction under section 300, subdivisions (b) and (g), that: (1) In July 2005, Mother had left V. with the child's paternal grandaunt, without making a plan for her care and supervision;

(2) Mother had not provided V. with the basic necessities of life, including food, clothing, shelter, and medical care; (3) the parents had a history of domestic violence; and (4) both parents had a history of substance abuse, both used methamphetamine and marijuana, which rendered them incapable of providing regular care for V., and both had been arrested in August 2005 for possession of controlled substances.

The court ordered that Mother have monitored visits at least three times a week for two hours. The reunification plan ordered for Mother required that she participate in a DCFS-approved parent education program, drug rehabilitation with random testing, and individual counseling that was to address case issues, including domestic violence. During the hearing, the court informed the parents that, based on V.'s age, they were entitled to only six-months of reunification services.

The six-month status review hearing was set for March 22, 2006. The DCFS report for that hearing advised the juvenile court that the parents' visitation had been sporadic, and that Mother had not completed individual counseling or parenting education, and she had not appeared for any of the eight court-ordered random drug tests.

Two weeks before the hearing, Mother called the DCFS social worker to inform her that she would be enrolling in the Angel Step program for domestic violence counseling, parent education, and drug counseling. DCFS reported that the social worker confirmed that on March 13, 2006, Mother had begun a 52-week program at Angel Step, which included substance abuse counseling with random testing and domestic violence counseling, and that Mother had attended the majority of her visits with V.

DCFS reported that Mother had explained that she had not been able to enroll in the Angel Step program in November 2005 because she had been advised by Angel Step that admission required enrollment in the CalWorks (California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids, formerly Aid to Families with Dependent Children) program, and she was now eligible because she was six months pregnant. The DCFS social worker verified what Mother had initially been told about her ineligibility for Angel Step, but also reported that she had encouraged Mother to apply to other programs and had provided her referrals for those programs when Mother was told she was ineligible for Angel Step.

The DCFS report recounted that the social worker had given Mother referrals for court-ordered programs on September 8, November 3, 2005, and March 13, 2006, and had provided her bus tokens and monthly bus passes. The social worker had telephoned Mother 12 times between September 2005 and March 2006, and had had three

face-to-face contacts with her in September 2005, and two more in November 2005.

Mother again failed to drug test on March 15 and 16, 2006, excusing the first failure by saying that the social worker had told her that the testing site opened an hour earlier than was the case; the second time Mother said she would test at Angel Step instead. Mother's first Angel Step drug test was March 20, 2006, and results were not yet available.

The six-month review was continued to April 25, 2006, for a contested hearing. By that time Mother had been participating in Angel Step for a month and had submitted four urine samples for testing; three of the four had been tested and were negative. Father had begun a program but was terminated almost immediately, due to his noncompliance.

At the April 25, 2006 hearing the court received DCFS's reports and their attachments and heard the parents' testimony.

Mother testified that she had visited her daughter approximately 70 times over the past six months, including every visit except one since the prior month's hearing. She had been participating in court-ordered programs for the last six weeks, and had been attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings most days a week. According to Mother, Angel Step was a six-month program.

Mother explained that it had taken her until mid-March 2006 to enroll in

court-ordered programs because she had not had sufficient funding, and when she called the program she was interested in, Angel Step, she had been told that the program required public assistance for which she did not qualify until her current pregnancy was verified. Mother testified that the social worker had provided her referrals at the beginning of the case but she had not used any of those referrals because they were too far from her house, the transportation cost was too high, or DCFS's financial aid was insufficient. She had spoken with the social worker more than once about the inadequacies of the referral list. When Angel Step had told her that she would be ineligible without Medi-Cal coverage, the social worker had given her the same list of referrals that she had provided initially.

Father testified about his participation in a program he had been attending for the past week and a half.

The juvenile court found that continued jurisdiction was necessary, DCFS had provided reasonable reunification services, both parents had partially complied with the case plan, return of V. to her parents' physical custody would place her at substantial risk of detriment, and that it was not substantially probable that V. could be returned to her parents' custody within the next six months. The court found that neither parent had consistently visited V., nor made significant progress in resolving the problems that led to V.'s dependency. It found that neither parent had demonstrated the capacity to complete the objectives of the treatment plan to provide for V.'s safety, protection, and physical and emotional health. Accordingly, it terminated reunification services and set a section 366.26 hearing to determine a permanent plan for V.

MOTHER'S CONTENTIONS

Mother contends that the court's finding that reasonable services had been provided to her was unsupported by substantial evidence in light of her youth^[2] and indigency, and that â€