In re Interest of C.F.

245 A.3d 1039 (Table)

In the INTEREST OF: C.F., Jr. & C.F., Minors

Appeal of: C.F., Father

In the Int. of: C.F., Jr. & C.F., Minors

Appeal of: C.F., Father

No. 756 MDA 2020

No. 757 MDA 2020

Superior Court of Pennsylvania.

Filed December 01, 2020

MEMORANDUM BY STRASSBURGER, J.:

C.F. (Father) appeals from the April 22, 2020 orders, ¹ changing the permanent placement goals of his twin children, C.F., Jr., a male, and C.F., a female (collectively, Children), born in February 2014, to adoption. ² We affirm.

Dauphin County Social Services for Children and Youth (the Agency) has been involved with this family "off and on" since 2013. N.T., 4/22/2020, at 29. On September 18, 2017, the Agency filed dependency petitions regarding Children. The petitions alleged that Children were without proper parental care or control due to unstable housing, poor housing conditions, a lack of food, missed medical appointments, and inadequate supervision. Most significantly, the Agency averred that Mother was charged with endangering the welfare of children after an incident during which she left Children and siblings home with inappropriate supervision. A no-contact order was put in place as a condition of Mother's bail, and the Agency planned that Father would act as Children's primary caregiver. However, the Agency averred that Father failed to maintain stable housing, and that he and Children were transient. The juvenile court entered orders adjudicating Children dependent on October 19, 2017. The orders directed that Children would remain with Father under court supervision.

Less than a month later, on November 6, 2017, the Agency filed motions to remove Children from Father's custody and place them in foster care. The Agency averred that the family's housing remained unstable, that Father was uncooperative and belligerent toward the Agency, and that Mother was engaging in substance abuse. The juvenile court granted the motions that same day and entered shelter care orders on November 22, 2017. Although Father made little, if any, progress toward compliance with Agency services for over the next year, Mother made substantial progress. The court returned Children to Mother by orders entered April 4, 2019, while maintaining court supervision. ³

Children remained in Mother's care only briefly before the Agency filed petitions to remove them on May 28, 2019. Therein, the Agency averred that it received a report alleging Mother and Father were the perpetrators of child sexual abuse, and that it had already removed Children pursuant to the juvenile court's verbal order. ⁴ The court entered orders formally granting the Agency's motions for removal, followed by shelter care orders.

Finally, on March 23, 2020, the Agency filed a motion requesting that the juvenile court change Children's permanent placement goals from return to parent or guardian to adoption. At the conclusion of the April 22, 2020 permanency review hearing for Children and their siblings, the court announced that it would change Children's goals to adoption, with a concurrent goal of permanent legal custody. ⁵ Subsequently, the court entered orders memorializing its decision. Father timely filed notices of appeal, along with concise statements of errors complained of on appeal, on May 21, 2020. ⁶

Father now raises the following claims for our review.

A. Whether Father's efforts towards his service objectives, such as visitation, employment, and obtaining a residence, demonstrate that reunification is in the best interest of [C]hildren, and that the Agency has failed to satisfy its burden o[f] showing that a change in the goal to adoption is in the best interest of [C]hildren.

B. Whether the Agency has failed to make reasonable efforts to return [ ] Children to Father because his service objectives are not clearly stated and are conflated with those of [Mother].

Father's Brief at 7 (suggested answers omitted).

When reviewing an order changing a child's permanent placement goal, this Court applies an abuse of discretion standard of review. In the Interest of D.R.-W. , 227 A.3d 905, 917 (Pa. Super. 2020). We must accept the juvenile court's factual findings and credibility determinations if the record supports them, but need not accept the court's inferences or legal conclusions. Id.

The Juvenile Act governs goal change proceedings. See 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6301 - 6375. The pertinent analysis is as follows.

Pursuant to [ 42 Pa.C.S.] § 6351(f) of the Juvenile Act, when considering a petition for a goal change for a dependent child, the juvenile court is to consider, inter alia: (1) the continuing necessity for and appropriateness of the placement; (2) the extent of compliance with the family service plan; (3) the extent of progress made towards alleviating the circumstances which necessitated the original placement; (4) the appropriateness and feasibility of the current placement goal for the children; (5) a likely date by which the goal for the child might be achieved; (6) the child's safety; and (7) whether the child has been in placement for at least fifteen of the last twenty-two months. The best interests of the child, and not the interests of the parent, must guide the trial court.

In re A.B. , 19 A.3d 1084, 1088-89 (Pa. Super. 2011) (citations and quotation marks omitted).

Father's first claim is that the Agency failed to prove that changing Children's permanent placement goals from return to parent or guardian to adoption would be in their best interests. Father's Brief at 12-19. He argues that he made progress toward compliance with his service objectives by attending visits, obtaining housing and employment, completing a parenting class, and completing a psychological evaluation. Id. at 12, 18-19. Father analogizes his circumstances to those of the appellants in In the Interest of A.W. , 162 A.3d 1117 (Pa. Super. 2017), and In Interest of T.J.J.M. , 190 A.3d 618 (Pa. Super. 2018), in which this Court reversed and vacated goal change orders due to progress with services. Id. at 16-18.

In the instant case, the juvenile court explained its decision to change Children's goals to adoption as follows, in relevant part.

Despite the supports offered by the Agency which date to 2017, Father has failed to sustain even minimal compliance with service objectives which sought to ensure safe and stable lives for Children. Father admitted however, that in the past, compliance with the objectives interfered with his life. Meanwhile, the opportunity for permanency for Children was postponed. The Pennsylvania Superior Court has reminded that "[a] child's life simply cannot be put on hold in the hope that the parent will summon the ability to handle the responsibilities of parenting." In re Adoption of M.E.P. , 825 A.2d 1266, 1276 (Pa. Super. 2003) (citation omitted).

Juvenile Court Opinion, 7/21/2020, at 9-10.

Our review of the certified record supports the juvenile court's decision. As summarized above, Children entered foster care in November 2017. The juvenile court returned Children to Mother's care by orders entered in April 2019, only to remove them again in May 2019. By the time of the goal change hearing in April 2020, Children had remained in foster care almost continuously for just under two and a half years.

Meanwhile, Father made minimal progress toward regaining custody of Children. The Agency caseworker, Kaylie Petersheim, testified that Father failed to provide his contact information for "extensive periods of time" and did not comply with his service objectives. N.T., 4/22/2020, at 31-35, 40. Additionally, he completed a psychological evaluation as requested, but did not follow through with the evaluation's recommendations. ⁷ Id. at 32. Father also failed to provide drug screens during the last review period. Id. at 32-33. Ms. Petersheim explained that Father "admitted to consistently smoking marijuana and that he always will smoke marijuana and he still wouldn't give urine screens." Id. at 40. In addition, she did not have any documentation confirming that Father had employment, and Father did not provide her with an address of his residence. ⁸ Id. at 31-32.

Father also displayed little interest in attending visits with Children. Ms. Petersheim testified the Agency offered Father one visit every other week, with the first visit occurring at the Agency, and the second visit occurring "up where [C]hildren were placed an hour and a half away, just to make it easier for the kids." Id. at 38. She explained that the Agency offered Father transportation to the visits that would occur an hour and a half away, but that he declined the Agency's offer, and instead exercised only one visit per month. Id.

Thus, the record demonstrates that Father remained in no position to provide appropriate parental care or control for Children at the time of the goal change hearing, despite years of opportunities. It was within the juvenile court's discretion to conclude that Children's lives should not remain on hold indefinitely, and that a goal change to adoption would be in their best interests. See In re J.D.H. , 171 A.3d 903 (Pa. Super. 2017) (quoting In re Adoption of R.J.S. , 901 A.2d 502, 513 (Pa. Super. 2006) ) (" ‘[A] child's life cannot be held in abeyance while a parent attempts to attain the maturity necessary to assume parenting responsibilities. The court cannot and will not subordinate indefinitely a child's need for permanence and stability to a parent's claims of progress and hope for the future.’ "). Father's first claim does not entitle him to relief.

Father argues in his second claim that the Agency failed to provide him with reasonable reunification efforts. Father's Brief at 12-13, 19-23. Father waived this claim by failing to include it in his concise statements of errors complained of on appeal. See In re M.Z.T.M.W. , 163 A.3d 462, 466 (Pa. Super. 2017) ("[I]t is well-settled that issues not included in an appellant's ... concise statement of...