Termination under § 19b(3)(c)(i); Reasonable reunification efforts; Accommodation of a respondent’s disability; The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA); In re Hicks/Brown; Distinguishing In re Matamoros; Child’s best interests; Effect of relative placement; Consideration of a guardianship

The court held that the trial court did not clearly err in finding that termination of both respondents’ parental rights was warranted under § (c)(i). Further, respondent-father did not show plain error affecting his substantial rights as to the DHHS’s alleged failure to accommodate his mental-health related disability. Finally, it concluded the trial court did not clearly err in finding that terminating the father’s rights was in the child’s (KH) best interests. As to respondent-mother, over “two years elapsed between the initial dispositional order and the termination order. During that substantial period of time, [she] made progress on rectifying the conditions that led to adjudication by addressing her untreated mental health condition.” The court noted her “progress was remarkable given [her] history with CPS and foster care.” But despite that progress, concerns about her “mental health status had resurfaced yet again. [She] would, for ‘a majority’ of unsupervised visits, call foster-care workers after hours ‘in a panic,’ report that she was feeling ‘overwhelmed and stressed out,’ and request that KH be picked up. On one such occasion, the on-call supervisor who picked up KH reported that [the] mother smelled of alcohol and that KH had a mark on his chin. KH reported that [the] mother had hit him. Then [she] was incarcerated for three days following an altercation with [the] father. On another occasion, [she] was reported to have attempted to kick in [the] father’s front door, after which she walked with a limp for a week or two.” As to the father, he made “no effort to explain how and why petitioner’s efforts were not reasonably accommodating[,]” and his reliance on Matamoros was unpersuasive as that case was distinguishable. As to § (c)(i), in “the roughly two-year period between the dispositional order imposing [the] father’s service plan and the termination of his parental rights, [his] lack of participation in KH’s life—one of the conditions that led to his removal—remained constant. In that period of time, [he] had visited KH just three times out of a possible 143 weekly visits.” Finally, the court found that “the trial court properly weighed KH’s relative placement against termination” and did not clearly err in considering “KH’s need for stability, permanency, and a safe home environment.” Affirmed.