Reasonable reunification efforts; Venue & jurisdiction; MCR 3.926(B) & (D); Effect of respondent pleading no contest to the amended petition’s allegations & failing to challenge the adjudicatory process in an appeal from the initial order of disposition; MCR 3.971(B); Waived issue

The court concluded “that just as respondent waived any challenge to venue, [she] waived any challenge to the trial court’s exercise of its jurisdiction in this case.” But it vacated the order terminating her parental rights and remanded for further proceedings as to whether the DHHS made reasonable efforts to reunify the family. The parties did “not dispute that DHHS created a service plan for respondent.” However, she argued “that the services provided were not reasonable because they were not tailored to address adequately her mental illness.” Specifically, she asserted that the DHHS “failed to refer her to a psychiatrist who could prescribe antipsychotic medication.” The record indicated that the DHHS referred her “for a medical appointment, but the physician’s assistant who conducted the appointment was unwilling to prescribe antipsychotic medication, and the agency did not make another referral thereafter.” It also did not refer her “to family therapy as recommended.” The court found that the “most glaring deficit” in the services provided was “the absence of a current evaluation of respondent’s mental health before the termination hearing in” 7/24. Her “parental rights were terminated on one basis only: that the conditions that led to adjudication continued to exist and that there was no reasonable likelihood that [they] would be rectified within a reasonable time given the ages of the children.” The DHHS “contended, and the trial court agreed, that of the conditions that led to adjudication, only one condition remained that posed a barrier: respondent’s mental health.” The DHHS sought termination “largely based on the opinion of the psychologist who had evaluated respondent’s mental health in [12/22], despite a more recent evaluation of [her] mental health in [9/23] that reported that [she] was not demonstrating symptoms of schizophrenia.” The DHHS’s concern about her “mental health appears to have focused primarily upon [her] reluctance to take antipsychotic medication, even though no doctor had prescribed such medication for” her. While the trial court did not base its decision on her “reluctance to take antipsychotic medication, [it] emphasized that respondent had not attended counseling regularly and recently had stopped attending counseling because she did not find it beneficial.” However, under the circumstances here, “the lack of a current evaluation of respondent’s mental health makes it difficult to conclude that [she] was in need of continued counseling.” The court observed “that parental rights may be terminated if a parent is mentally ill, but not merely because a parent does not participate in counseling, unless it is demonstrated that the parent is in need of counseling to rectify a condition that is creating a barrier to reunification.” The DHHS has to “establish that a particular barrier continues to exist before declaring that the parent’s lack of participation in services to rectify that barrier is a basis for termination.”