Yuba Cnty. Health & Human Servs. Dep't v. S.A. (In re W.S.)

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In re W.S., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

YUBA COUNTY HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES DEPARTMENT, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. S.A., Defendant and Appellant.

C095170

California Court of Appeals, Third District, Yuba

May 18, 2022

NOT TO BE PUBLISHED

(Super. Ct. No. JVSQ2000034)

HULL J.

S.A mother of the minor W.S., appeals from the juvenile court's orders denying mother's petition to change the juvenile court's order terminating her reunification services and thereafter her parental rights and freeing the minor for adoption. (Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 366.26, 388; statutory section citations that follow are to this code.)

Mother contends the juvenile court erred when it denied her section 388 petition without a hearing. We affirm the juvenile court's orders.

FACTS AND HISTORY OF THE PROCEEDINGS

Mother was pregnant with W.S. in late 2019 into early 2020. On December 9, 2019, during her pregnancy, mother tested positive for amphetamine, methamphetamine, and THC. She also tested positive for cannabinoids on January 19, 2020, and February 7, 2020. In early February 2020, mother was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, and chronic hypertension. Her physician recommended she deliver her child immediately because the child was at risk due to these medical conditions. Mother rejected this recommendation and left the hospital against medical advice.

Mother gave birth to the minor later in February 2020. The Yuba County Health and Human Services Department (Department) received an emergency response referral concerning mother. When the social worker arrived at the hospital and contacted mother, mother was generally uncooperative, but admitted she had engaged in "heavy marijuana use during the pregnancy."

On March 4, 2020, the Department filed a dependency petition on behalf of the minor under section 300, subdivision (b)(1). The petition alleged mother failed to protect her newborn child because she tested positive for THC at the time of the minor's birth. The petition further alleged mother left the hospital with the newborn minor against medical advice and before the minor could be tested for drugs in her system. The petition alleged the minor was not in mother's care when the Department served her with a protective custody warrant and mother refused to cooperate with the Department to locate the child.

The petition also alleged mother previously had another daughter removed from the care of that child's legal guardian in 2013. Despite having been offered family reunification services, those services were terminated and mother did not reunify with that child who was ordered into another legal guardianship in 2019.

When the social worker contacted the maternal grandparents and advised them she had a custody warrant for the newborn minor they also refused to cooperate with the Department and were verbally aggressive with the social worker. The grandparents claimed the newborn was in the Bay Area and/or out of state. Shortly after, mother called the Department to ask why the police and the Department had been looking for her. Mother told the Department the minor was in the Bay Area and refused to allow the Department into her home. Despite her refusal to allow the Department to look inside her home for the minor the Department concluded exigent circumstances existed and searched mother's home. The Department did not find the minor.

Throughout these proceedings, father was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.

At the March 5, 2020 detention hearing, mother appeared, but father did not. The juvenile court found the Department made a prima facie showing the minor came within section 300 and entrusted the minor to the Department for placement. The juvenile court ordered mother to disclose the location of the child by the end of that day. The juvenile court further ordered supervised visitation for mother at least three times per week for an hour. The juvenile court ordered services for mother including a mental health assessment, substance abuse assessment, and random observed drug testing. The juvenile court continued the hearing for a week.

Mother presented the child to the Department the day after the original detention hearing and prior to the March 11, 2020, continued hearing. She refused to submit to a drug test prior to the continued detention hearing.

In her interview with the Department, mother asserted she did not have a substance abuse problem and the positive methamphetamine test was both false and illegally obtained. She claimed she was falsely accused in her arrest in 2017 for possession of methamphetamine and not prosecuted because the substance was not hers. In March 2020, mother again tested positive for THC in two separate drug tests.

Mother did not appear at the April 30, 2020, jurisdictional hearing at which the juvenile court sustained the petition. The jurisdictional report noted mother visited the minor until the Department's visitation center was shut down on March 20, 2020, due to COVID-19 protocols. The juvenile court ordered visitation to occur by video or telephone.

In the case plan attached to its disposition report, the Department recommended that mother receive reunification services. These recommended services included child and family team meetings, visitation, counseling, and mental health and substance abuse services. The plan required mother to call the Department daily for drug testing. The Department recommended that mother participate appropriately at all child family team meetings and secure suitable safe and appropriate housing for the minor.

At the June 18, 2020 dispositional hearing, the juvenile court ordered the Department to provide mother with the above noted services and bypassed the father under section 361.5, subdivision (e) due to his incarceration. It noted mother's progress towards alleviating or mitigating the causes requiring removal was minimal.

Despite the court's order, mother refused to test twice more in August and October of 2020. She was advised these tests would be deemed "dirty" due to her refusal.

In its report for the six-month review hearing, the Department noted mother reported having purchased a home. Mother forgot or canceled five visits with the social worker intended to allow the social worker to inspect her home to demonstrate her compliance with that part of her case plan. Mother also informed the social worker she could not come see the house until after the current remodel work was complete. When the social worker was finally able to inspect the home, it was still under repair in such a way as to be dangerous for the minor to live there.

The six-month review report detailed mother's regular uncooperative behavior at family team meetings. Mother interrupted others during the meetings, yelled at the social worker, and was generally disrespectful.

The report also highlighted mother's sporadic participation in visitation. During the period of review, the report noted she had completed 14 out of the 40 possible visits. At the hearing, the social worker testified overall, mother missed 21 visits out of 55 total visits. When she attended visitation, mother was not cooperative and refused to follow the visitation center rules. Mother claimed her employment interfered with her visitation, but refused to provide any evidence of this employment to her social worker. Mother also claimed she missed four weeks of visits because she was quarantined due to COVID-19.

The report noted mother also declined to submit to required drug testing. Despite the requirement she call in daily for drug testing, mother called in sporadically. She claimed not to understand why she had to drug test because she was "clean." Of the seven tests administered, however, two were positive for marijuana, three were negative, and mother refused two.

Despite the loss of custody of her child in March 2020, mother did not start to participate in a residential drug treatment program at Skyway House until December 2020. Mother, however, limited the information Skyway could share with the Department and directed the Skyway House not to send its assessment to the Department.

At the conclusion of the six-month review hearing, the juvenile court concluded the Department provided reasonable services to mother. The juvenile court also found mother had made significant progress in resolving the problems that led to the removal. Despite the Department's request the juvenile court terminate reunification services, the juvenile court extended mother's reunification services at the February 4, 2021 hearing.

Following the six-month review, mother continued to fail to meet her visitation obligations. Mother continued to be disrespectful in the child family team meetings. She also failed to submit to drug tests. At the February 24, 2021 interim hearing, the juvenile court admonished mother to submit to the required tests and to make and keep all of her visitation appointments.

Despite the juvenile court's admonishment, the Department's follow up report described mother's visitation following that hearing as "minimal at best." Mother alienated the maternal grandmother who was supervising some of the visitation. As a result, the maternal grandmother canceled the visitations grandmother was supervising. Mother also failed to attend many scheduled visitations that were to be supervised by the Department.

Between February and April 2021, mother tested positive for methamphetamine and/or amphetamine seven times. She continued to fail to call in for drug testing daily as required. In February, Skyway House terminated mother from their program due to her failure to obtain services for 30 days. Skyway House reported her prognosis at the time of discharge...