Opinion
No. 16–P–622.
11-25-2016
ADOPTION OF NAVA.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 1:28
After a trial, a judge of the Juvenile Court found the father unfit to parent the child, terminated his parental rights, and approved the adoption plan of the Department of Children and Families (DCF). On appeal, the father claims the judge abused her discretion in declining to order postadoption visitation. We affirm.
The mother stipulated to the termination of her parental rights and is not a party to this appeal.
The father does not appeal the finding of unfitness or the termination of his parental rights.
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Background. The mother and the father are the parents of the child born in January, 2011, as well as three other children. The family lived together in Pennsylvania until the father moved with the child to Massachusetts in October, 2014. In a proceeding in Pennsylvania, the parental rights of both parents had been terminated as to the other three children, due in part to allegations that the father had sexually abused the oldest daughter. The Pennsylvania court order also provided that the father have no unsupervised contact with the child at issue here.
Since his arrival in Massachusetts, the father has been homeless and living in shelters. Until shortly before trial, he was unemployed. The father acknowledged that he has mental health issues, but does not believe he needs treatment. DCF created a service plan for the father, but he failed to complete any of the tasks. Throughout the proceedings, the father repeatedly stated that he "does not want custody." The father had visitation with the child, supervised by DCF, although he often cut the visits short. The child called the father "daddy," but she also hit him during visits.
The child suffers from lead paint poisoning, which requires an involved treatment regimen, without which she will likely develop long-term neurological issues. The child also has cognitive delays and significant behavioral problems. There was no evidence of a bond or significant attachment between the father and the child. Moreover, the child has improved emotionally since having been placed in an intensive care foster home. Two families with the requisite skills are undergoing home studies, with the goal of adopting the child.
Postadoption visitation. During the trial, at the close of the evidence, the judge orally indicated her intention to allow postadoption visitation with the father. When she issued her written findings, conclusions, and decree, however, the judge ordered only that the father could receive an annual letter and picture of the child. As a result of an interim remand order from this court to clarify this discrepancy, the judge made additional findings of fact and conclusions law. Therein, she found that postadoption visitation is not in the best interests of the child and left open the possibility that the adoptive parents may determine that such contact is in the child's best interests in the future. She left unchanged her order as to the annual letter and picture.
Analysis. Ordering postadoption visitation requires "a finding, supported by the evidence, that continued contact is currently in the best interests of the child." Adoption of Vito, 431 Mass. 550, 564 (2000). "[T]he best interests of the child standard is one grounded in the particular needs ... of the individual child in question" and the determination should be "based on emotional bonding and other circumstances of the actual personal relationship of the child and the biological parent." Id. at 562, 566.
We discern no abuse of discretion here. The judge was keenly aware of her discretion in considering postadoption visitation and, after weighing all of the appropriate factors, found that postadoption visitation is not in the child's best interests, but that another form of postadoption contact is. Her findings are amply supported by the record. The judge took into consideration that the father visited the child, and in her discretion, decided this warranted a letter and picture. Given the rights adoptive parents have in raising their children, postadoption visitation orders "may be justified only in limited circumstances." Id. at 563.
Decree affirmed.