Juvenile guardianship; MCL 712A.19a(9)(c); Reasonable reunification efforts; MCL 712A.18f; Parenting time; MCL 712A.13a(13); Aggravated circumstances; MCL 722.638; Failure to benefit from services; In re Frey; Best interests; In re COH; Child Custody Act; MCL 722.23

The court held that the trial court did not err by finding reasonable reunification efforts and did not abuse its discretion by establishing a guardianship for the child with her biological maternal grandmother. The child was removed after hospital staff determined that her injuries and severe malnutrition were caused by abuse rather than self-injury. The court first held that the record supported aggravated circumstances because the child was subjected to “battering, torture, and other severe physical abuse,” and respondents’ starvation of the child caused malnutrition “so severe as to be life-threating.” But it also found that the DHHS made reasonable efforts because it provided Families First, community resources, family team meetings, parenting classes, therapy, counseling, domestic-violence and anger-management classes, and counseling for the child. The court reasoned that respondents failed to benefit because they “persisted in the fiction” that the child injured herself and lied about the abuse. The court next held that the trial court properly suspended parenting time and family therapy because MCL 712A.13a(13) permits suspension when even supervised parenting time may harm the child, and the record showed contact would have been “damaging to [the child’s] mental health.” Finally, the court found that guardianship was in the child’s best interests because she was thriving with her grandmother, doing well in school, and the trial court found guardianship served “stability,” “guidance,” and “schooling.” It also emphasized the child was “really, really thriving” without contact with respondents or siblings (contact that she refused). Affirmed.