Children’s best interests; In re White; Consideration of domestic violence; In re Plump; Guardianship; In re Lombard

Holding that the trial court did not clearly err in finding that terminating respondent-mother’s parental rights was in the children’s best interests, the court affirmed. The trial court determined “that the children were more bonded with their foster-care providers than with respondent. This finding was unsurprising given that [they] ‘spent more time in foster care and away from their parents than they have with their parents.’” Further, it considered her “parenting ability, noting that she never ‘really showed, through the course of the last 17 months, any ability whatsoever to understand what the children’s needs are.’ [She] failed to control and regulate the children for parenting visits and showed a ‘particularly troubling’ response to learning that one child was self-harming by pulling out his hair.” In addition, it concluded that termination was in the children’s best interests despite relative placement. It considered their ages and the length of time they “had spent in a placement, highlighting that respondent was not able to control [them] during parenting time; that [two] had ‘been in foster care a huge chunk of their lives’; and that [three others] had ‘been in foster care for over half their lives.’” It additionally “considered case service plans, parent-agency treatment plans, and court-appointed special advocate reports.” The court noted that “the trial court also explicitly considered each child individually[,]” considering their “‘unique needs’” and acknowledging that each “had their own ‘individual manifestations’ of their life circumstances.” While respondent asserted that the fact she was “a domestic-violence victim was used to terminate her parental rights,” the court found that “the trial court properly limited its consideration of [her] history with domestic violence to the manner in which respondent’s own behaviors put the children at risk of harm.” It also held that the trial court did not clearly err in rejecting the guardianship alternative where it “found that the more permanent solution of” termination was in the children’s best interests.