In re L.B.

1

IN THE INTEREST OF: L.B., A MINOR APPEAL OF: J.B., MOTHER

No. 1351 WDA 2022

No. J-S09031-23

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

May 5, 2023

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

Appeal from the Order Entered October 19, 2022 In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Orphans' Court at No(s) CP-02-AP-0000148-2021

BEFORE: BENDER, P.J.E., BOWES, J., and SULLIVAN, J.

MEMORANDUM

SULLIVAN, J.

J.B ("Mother") appeals the order that involuntarily terminated her parental rights to L.B. ("Child") her daughter born in April 2018.^[1] After careful review, we affirm.

We glean the relevant factual and procedural history of this matter from the certified record. The Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth, and Families ("CYF") first became involved with this family five days after Child's birth when Mother admitted to substance abuse during her pregnancy. See N.T., 9/12/22, at 99-100. CYF did not seek to remove Child from the home at that time. Mother and Child's putative father, C.S. ("Father"), were undergoing treatment for their substance abuse problems. See id. at 100.

In August 2019, CYF received a referral regarding allegations of intimate partner violence ("IPV") by Father against Mother. See id. at 101-02. CYF accepted the family for service, referred Mother to an IPV specialist to assist her in seeking a protection from abuse ("PFA") order,^[2] and interviewed members of Mother's and Father's extended families. See id. at 102-03.

In September 2019, Mother contacted CYF and reported that Father held her against her will in their shared home until she was able to flee to a nearby police station. See id. at 103-04. On the day of Mother's report, CYF obtained an emergency custody authorization placing Child in the physical care of maternal grandmother ("Grandmother"), where she remained almost three years later. See id. at 104-07. In October 2019, Child was adjudicated dependent and ordered that she remain in kinship care with Grandmother. See id. at 107-08. In the same order, the court directed Mother, inter alia, to address her ongoing mental health issues and to receive drug screenings. See id. at 108.

CYF set goals that Mother obtain independent employment and housing, continue both IPV counseling and substance abuse treatment, participate in visitations with Child, and address her mental health problems and provide signed medical information releases to CYF. See id. at 117, 121. Mother successfully obtained housing in January 2020, and claimed to have found employment as an in-home care provider. See id. at 118-19. Mother completed IPV counseling in September 2020 and continued treatment for substance abuse. See id. During this initial time period, the court granted Mother "liberal, unsupervised" visits with Child. See id. at 106, 118-19.

Despite multiple attempts, CYF was unable to confirm Mother's employment and she lost her housing when Pennsylvania's Emergency Rental Assistance Program ("ERAP") expired in 2022. Id. at 119-22, 185; see also N.T., 10/17/22, at 8. Mother experienced relapses in substance abuse in June 2020 and August 2021. See N.T., 9/12/22, at 124-27. In June 2020, Mother rescinded the releases she had previously signed permitting CYF to obtain records of her drug treatment; after signing new releases, she rescinded those releases in April 2022, preventing CYF from assessing her compliance with drug and alcohol counseling. See id. at 42-43, 86, 123-24, 191. Despite Mother's expressed continued fear of violence from Father and her assertion that he violated the existing PFA in the case, Mother declined to proceed against Father. See id. at 131-32.

Mother's mental health increasingly became a concern for CYF and the court. In 2019, she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder ("PTSD"), persecutory delusion disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ("ADHD"), opioid use disorder, and cannabis use disorder. See id. at 48, 52, 110. Mother took several medications in connection with these diagnoses. See id. at 12-13, 25. Mother unilaterally ceased participating in medical or psychological treatment after May 2022. See id. at 12-13, 25.

In August 2021, Mother stated that Child, then three years old, could make her own medical and dental decisions, which resulted in the court appointing Grandmother as Child's medical decisionmaker. See id. at 57-59, 114, 207-08. From March 2022 onward, Mother's mental health decline continued to accelerate: she insisted that her case file was fabricated and her case should be closed, sent rambling, unpunctuated texts to CYF, and evinced a lack of mental stability. See id. at 194-96, 200, 202. Also in March 2021, CYF determined that Mother had made no progress toward her mental health goals and adopted concurrent goals of reunification and adoption. See id. at 148, 180. In April 2022, CYF visited Mother's apartment and found that she placed her bed in her living room. Mother explained that the living room was the best place to be if someone broke into her apartment. See N.T., 9/12/22, at 183. At that meeting, Mother exhibited paranoia, claimed that her mail was being stolen and the Freemasons were acting against her, and had great difficulty focusing. See id. at 53-56, 193; see also N.T., 10/17/22, at 34-35. Mother had continued to visit Child even after the court's May 2020 order that their meetings be supervised after she threatened to abscond with Child. See id. at 109. However, after April 2022, Mother made only one or two visits to Child claiming that she had work responsibilities, which CYF was unable to corroborate. See id. at 111, 151-52, 204-06.

The Orphans' Court issued an order in June 2022 stating that Mother "continues to have moderate to severe behaviors that are a manifestation of her mental health because she has refused to engage in meaningful mental health treatments, the primary and substantial barrier keeping her from reunification with [Child]," and stated that Mother had made no progress toward alleviating the circumstances that led to the initial placement. See id. at 147, 176-77, 199-200.

Since May 2022, Mother has repeatedly stated that she does not need mental health treatment, does not have mental health issues, and that CYF forced treatment upon her. See id. at 140-44, 147. Mother has also stated that CYF is trafficking and making money off of Child. See id. at 144.

Mother's CYF caseworkers testified that termination of Mother's parental rights was in Child's best interest because neither Mother nor Father had made progress in resolving the reasons that led to the initial placement and Grandmother, with whom Child had a strong bond and who wants to adopt Child, expressed willingness to maintain Child's relationship with Mother and paternal grandparents. See N.T, 9/12/22, at 165-66.^[3] One of Mother's CYF caseworkers testified that termination of Mother's parental rights would not have a detrimental effect on Child because Grandmother has such a strong and significant bond with Child, will always make Mother welcome, and Child will continue to thrive with Grandmother. See id. at 215-16.

Mother testified that Child's removal from her home was "rigged," and that materials from her file had been suppressed. See N.T., 10/17/22, 6, 9, 10, 11-12. Mother stated that the court was "whisper[ing] in my mother's ear and try to divide me and conquer and cause chaos and get my mom to hate me and me to hate her. . .." See id. at 21-22. She stated that she needed to be with Child for her mental health to improve. See id. at 22. Mother also declared that CYF had manipulated Grandmother and another person who used the money she made from that process to pay for her wedding. See id. at 23. Mother declared, "There's nothing wrong with my mental health. You keep playing mental." See id. at 32-33. At the end of a lengthy, passionate declaration in which she criticized the previous judge in the case, Mother declared, "[F]reewill is dead like that. The governments are taking over. They think they have the power. This is crazy. Like I have every - - I had all proof . . .. Every one of my witnesses . . . [t]hey don't see why I need all this supervision. It's because it was being tacked on me to try to break me . . .." See id. at 38-43.

On August 12, 2021, CYF filed a petition for the involuntary termination of Mother's (and Father's) parental rights pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2511(a)(2), (5), (8), and (b).^[4] The Orphans' Court held evidentiary hearings on September 12 and October 17, 2022, respectively, at which CYF presented the testimony of Dr. Muhammad Shaikh, the psychiatrist who had monitored Mother's medication, Dr. Beth Bliss, an expert psychologist who observed Mother and Child and prepared a report,^[5] Kaitlyn Joyce, the CYF caseworker who supervised this case from October 2019 through February 2021, and Shante Washington, the CYF caseworker who supervised this case beginning in approximately 2021. On October 19, 2022, the Orphans' Court filed an order involuntarily terminating Mother's parental rights.

Mother filed a timely notice of appeal to this Court along with a concise statement of errors complained of on appeal pursuant to Pa.R.A.P. 1925(a)(2)(i) and (b). Thereafter, the Orphans' Court submitted a responsive opinion pursuant to Rule 1925(a)(2)(ii).

Mother raises two issues for our consideration:

1. Did the [Orphans'] [C]ourt abuse its discretion and/or err as a matter of law in granting the petition to involuntarily terminate Mother's parental rights pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S.A. § 2511(a)(2), (5), and (8)?

2. Did the [Orphans'] [C]ourt abuse its discretion and/or err as a matter of law in concluding that CYF met its burden of proving by clear

...