In re M.K.

381 N.C. 418

873 S.E.2d 320

In the MATTER OF: M.K.

No. 186A21

Supreme Court of North Carolina.

Filed June 17, 2022

Jane R. Thompson, for petitioner-appellee New Hanover County Department of Social Services.

Poyner Spruill LLP, Raleigh, by Stephanie L. Gumm, for appellee Guardian ad Litem.

Benjamin J. Kull, Raleigh, for respondent-appellant mother.

ERVIN, Justice.

¶ 1 Respondent-mother Onika G. appeals from the trial court's order terminating her parental rights in her minor child M.K.^{1 ,2} After careful consideration of respondent-mother's challenges to the trial court's termination order in light of the record and the applicable law, we conclude that the trial court's order should be affirmed.

I. Background

¶ 2 Marco was born in January 2019 and has two older siblings, M.N., who was born in 2014, and M.G., who was born in 2017. The New Hanover County Department of Social Services had been attempting to help Marco's family address issues relating to mental health, domestic violence, parenting, and housing stability since May 2018, at which time the father of M.N. and M.G. had obtained the entry of a domestic violence order of protection against respondent-mother after she threatened him with a brick. In August 2018, respondent-mother was charged with assaulting a woman. Respondent-mother struggled to maintain housing and had moved multiple times. After completing a comprehensive clinical assessment on 14 November 2018, respondent-mother was diagnosed as suffering from mild persistent depressive disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, with the assessor having recommended that respondent-mother participate in outpatient therapy, medication management, transition management services, and "individual placement" to "support[ ] employment." However, respondent-mother failed to cooperate with the assessor's recommendations and only made minimal progress in attempting to comply with a case plan that had been developed for her by DSS.

¶ 3 On 22 February 2019, respondent-mother and Marco were staying with respondent-mother's aunt in New Hanover County. At 5:00 a.m. on that date, law enforcement officers responded to a domestic violence report originating from the aunt's residence. At the time that the officers arrived, respondent-mother had been locked out of her aunt's house and was arguing with her aunt through the door. The children were present during the incident, at the conclusion of which the officers arrested respondent-mother based upon outstanding warrants for failing to appear in court and violating a domestic violence order of protection. On the same date, DSS filed a juvenile petition alleging that Marco was a neglected juvenile and obtained the entry of an order placing him in nonsecure custody.³

¶ 4 After a hearing held on 27 March 2019 following respondent-mother's release from pretrial detention on 22 March 2019, the trial court entered an order finding, based upon the evidence presented on that occasion and certain stipulations between the parties, that Marco was a neglected juvenile as defined in N.C.G.S. § 7B-101(15). Although the trial court found that respondent-mother had failed to cooperate with the recommendations that had been made during her clinical assessment, it also found that she had agreed with the assessor's recommendations and wished to pursue a plan of reunification. As a result, the trial court ordered respondent-mother to

complete a psychological evaluation and comply with any and all recommendations. She shall comply with any and all recommendations received from her substance abuse treatment provider. She shall seek medication treatment from one medication provider and consume all medication as prescribed. She shall submit to random drug screens as requested by [DSS] and [the] Guardian ad Litem. She shall execute a release on behalf of [DSS] and Guardian ad Litem with all service providers. She shall obtain stable housing and verifiable income.

¶ 5 At a review hearing held on 5 June 2019, a report describing the results of a psychological evaluation conducted by Len Lecci, Ph.D., which had been completed on 1 May 2019, was admitted into evidence. Dr. Lecci diagnosed respondent-mother as suffering from bipolar II disorder and recommended that she receive a medication assessment, behavioral intervention, Dialectical Behavior Therapy group work, and one-on-one parenting education and that she apply for Section 8 housing assistance and social security disability benefits. At the time of the 5 June 2019 review hearing, respondent-mother lacked independent housing and was not employed. In a review order entered on 9 July 2019, the trial court found that respondent-mother had applied for social security disability benefits and Section 8 housing assistance and had expressed the intention to pursue medication management. The trial court authorized respondent-mother to have supervised visitation with Marco for two hours each week and allowed DSS to increase the frequency and duration of the respondent-mother's visits with Marco to the extent that respondent-mother complied with the provisions of her case plan.

¶ 6 After a permanency planning hearing held on 6 February 2020, the trial court entered an order on 27 February 2020 in which it determined that respondent-mother was utilizing mental health services provided by the Physician Alliance for Mental Health (PAMH). On the other hand, the trial court found that respondent-mother denied that she had any responsibility for her untreated mental health difficulties and her lack of stable housing and that respondent-mother's "unwillingness to act on her own behalf [wa]s a significant barrier" to her ability to satisfy the requirements of her case plan. In addition, the trial court noted that DSS had concerns about respondent-mother's "ability to keep herself and her child[ ] safe"; observed that respondent-mother had "made threats of violence towards others;" described "accounts of physical violence towards others" and had made "videos of fights"; and pointed out that, even though respondent-mother had been authorized to have weekly supervised visitation with Marco, she had only done so "sporadically," having participated in six of the ten visits that had been scheduled between November 2019 and the date of the permanency planning hearing. Finally, the trial court noted that respondent-mother had met with DSS employees on 24 January 2020, that respondent-mother had acknowledged that she had a substance abuse problem at that time, and that, after acknowledging that she would test positive for marijuana, respondent-mother had refused to comply with a request that she submit to a random drug screen. In light of these and other findings of fact, the trial court ordered respondent-mother to comply with the terms of her case plan and established a primary permanent plan for Marco of reunification, with a secondary plan of adoption.

¶ 7 On 30 November 2020, the trial court entered another permanency planning order in the aftermath of a hearing that was held on 4 November 2020. At that time, the trial court determined that respondent-mother had failed to make adequate progress towards satisfying the requirements of her case plan within a reasonable amount of time. More specifically, the trial court determined that respondent-mother had consistently failed to engage in the services that had been recommended for her during the psychological evaluation that had been performed by Dr. Lecci and that her "unwillingness to act on her own behalf" continued to pose a significant barrier to her ability to satisfy the requirements of her case plan. The trial court also found that respondent-mother's "unwillingness to address her anger management issues continue[d] to put [Marco] at risk of harm" and posed yet another barrier to reunification.

¶ 8 The trial court found that respondent-mother had completed a comprehensive clinical assessment with PAMH in January 2020 and that PAMH had recommended that she receive a Community Support Team level of care. The trial court found that, after respondent-mother had been placed on a waiting list for such services, CST had contacted respondent-mother in May 2020 for the purpose of addressing her "immediate stressors" — housing and employment. The trial court further noted that respondent-mother did not have a mental health treatment plan and that PAMH was not addressing respondent-mother's medication management or mental health therapy needs at that time.

¶ 9 The trial court determined that, by August 2020, respondent-mother was in the process of obtaining a psychiatric evaluation and transitioning her medication management to PAMH. The trial court noted that respondent-mother had made contradictory reports to social workers concerning the medications that she had been taking and that, while respondent-mother claimed that she had been taking her psychotropic medication as prescribed, she had been unable to identify the medication in question. The trial court found that, despite the fact that DSS and the guardian ad litem had repeatedly contacted PAMH for the purpose of obtaining information about the treatment that respondent-mother had been receiving, neither had received a response. In light of this set of circumstances and respondent-mother's failure to respond to inquiries that DSS had made to respondent-mother about her treatment, the trial court found that respondent-mother had "intentionally withh[eld] treatment information from [DSS] and [the] Guardian ad Litem."

¶ 10 Similarly, the trial court found that respondent-mother had failed to consistently submit to random drug screens in accordance with DSS requests and that visitation with respondent-mother had become a "negative experience" for Marco. Aside from the fact that she had only attended sixteen of thirty-three scheduled visits, respondent-mother had failed to exhibit appropriate parenting skills during the visits in which she did participate and had been...