Termination under §§ 19b(3)(c)(i) & (c)(ii); Children’s best interests; Reasonable reunification efforts

The court held that (1) §§ (c)(i) and (c)(ii) were established by clear and convincing evidence, (2) terminating respondents’ parental rights was in their children’s best interests, and (3) the DHHS made reasonable reunification efforts. Thus, it affirmed the trial court’s order terminating respondents’ parental rights. As to § (c)(i), the 182 days or more requirement was met. The “conditions that led to adjudication were that their house was unclean and unsafe for the children to live, including that it had drug paraphernalia accessible to the children, and had several animals.” The court found that their “efforts in engaging in mental health treatment, completing the Foster Care Supervised Visitation program, removing most of the animals, and bringing their home up to habitability multiple times, were commendable. However, respondents were unable to sustain a safe home environment for their children or meaningfully benefit from any of the programming offered by DHHS in the almost four years since CPS became involved with the family. Each time [they] cleaned their home and their children were welcomed back in, their home would deteriorate to the same, if not worse, uninhabitable condition it was found in at the time of respondents’ plea.” They were also “given several safety plans to keep drug paraphernalia inaccessible to their children, but continued to disregard the” plans, posing “a risk of harm to the children.” The court determined that, in light of “the length of time and number of interventions tried across the board,” clear and convincing evidence supported the finding “that the home will not become clean and safe within a reasonable time.” As to the children’s best interests, the inadequate home environment, and respondents’ “failure to feed, bathe, or provide their children with clean clothes, presented significant safety and health issues and amounted to neglect.” Based on the record, the court saw “no clear error in the trial court’s findings that termination would provide the children stability and permanence, as well as a clean, safe environment to live.”