Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
San Francisco County Super. Ct. No. JD05-3182
Ruvolo, P. J.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Holly R., mother of minor N. S. (Mother), filed a petition for writ of mandate under California Rules of Court, rule 8.450, seeking review of the trial court’s order setting a hearing under Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26. We deny the petition on the merits.
Unless otherwise noted, all further undesignated statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.
II.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Respondent San Francisco County Department of Social Services (Department) filed a petition regarding N. S. under section 300 in June 2005. The petition alleged in relevant part that N. S., born in November 2004, was at risk based on Mother’s failure or inability to protect him or provide regular care. The petition further alleged that Mother left N. S. in his father’s care for about 30 minutes, knowing that his father had been drinking alcohol. N. S. had a bruise under his left eye when she returned. N. S.’s father (Father) and Mother informed the child welfare worker that, while caring for N. S., Father became sick after smoking marijuana. He went into the bathroom after placing N. S. on the floor, where N. S. fell over and sustained the bruise. The petition also alleged that Mother had mental health issues, and that her ability to parent was impacted by her reliance on prescribed marijuana, Vicodin and morphine for pain management. The petition further alleged that Mother and Father’s relationship involved domestic violence. That allegation was amended to allege a “conflictual relationship.”
That finding was sustained as amended.
On June 20, 2005, the court ordered N. S. detained in foster care. N. S. was classified as a “Medically Fragile Infant” due to his hypertonia and developmental delays. On November 28, 2005, the court found true the allegations of the petition as amended, and set the six-month review hearing for February 16, 2006. The case plan included parenting education, an infant-parent program, housing referrals, visitation, couples counseling for the parents if they remained together, individual counseling for both parents, and an evaluation of Mother by a chronic pain specialist, whose recommendations she was to follow.
At the six-month review hearing held on March 23, 2006, the court found that reasonable services were provided, that both parents had made minimal progress in alleviating the causes necessitating placement, ordered continued reunification services, and set the 12-month review hearing for August 17, 2006. N. S. remained in foster care, and was still classified as a “Medically Fragile Infant.”
The contested 12-month review hearing began on December 18, 2006, and was continued a number of times, concluding on February 23, 2007. At the hearing, the evidence showed that the parents had moved to Morgan Hill in June 2006, and the Department provided them with transportation vouchers in order to access reunification services and visit the minor in San Francisco. In August 2006, they moved to a homeless shelter in Santa Clara, but were asked to leave. As of August 17, 2006, they lived in a homeless shelter in San Jose, despite both having stable incomes from Social Security Disability Insurance.
The Infant-Parent Program at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) terminated services to parents, noting that “[o]nly one visit took place at the Infant-Parent Program and on this occasion [Mother] arrived 30 minutes late . . . .” Mother and Father had not attended couples counseling, indicating they were “not a couple.” Mother was evaluated by a chronic pain specialist at UCSF, but she declined any of the recommended non-pharmacological treatments. Mother had been receiving individual therapy, though her attendance was “erratic.” Her therapist “requested THAT she no longer be assigned” as Mother’s therapist. As of February 23, 2007, Mother had seen a new therapist three times.
The parents missed about one-quarter of their scheduled visits with N. S. Between November 1, 2006, and February 27, 2007, Mother visited the minor only “eight out of 18 times,” which she described as “not a big gap . . . [given] the different things going on in my life. . . .”
On February 23, 2007, the court found that reasonable reunification services had been provided to parents, but their progress had been minimal. The court terminated reunification services, continued the matter to May 16, 2007, for a hearing under section 366.26, and set the implementation hearing for June 13, 2007. Mother timely filed her notice of intent to file writ petition.
Due to an internal misdirection of the notice of intent to file writ petition in the superior court, the record was not prepared until April 5, 2007. On June 6, 2007, we granted the Department’s motion to correct the record, and ordered the reporter’s transcript from December 18 and 19, 2006, to be transcribed and filed with this court. We stayed the hearing set for June 13, 2007, pending further order.
III.
DISCUSSION
A. Reasonableness of Reunification Services
Mother asserts that no substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s finding that reasonable reunification services were provided. She claims that the Department failed to adequately address her learning disabilities, medical conditions, and issues arising from domestic violence.
“ ‘[W]ith regard to the sufficiency of reunification services, our sole task on review is to determine whether the record discloses substantial evidence which supports the juvenile court’s finding that reasonable services were provided or offered[.]’ ” (In re Julie M. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 41, 46.) “ ‘ “ ‘[W]hen two or more inferences can reasonably be deduced from the facts,’ either deduction will be supported by substantial evidence, and ‘a reviewing court is without power to substitute its deductions for those of the trial court.’ [Citations.]” [Citation.]’ [Citation.]” (In re Misako R. (1991) 2 Cal.App.4th 538, 545.) “[I]n reviewing the reasonableness of the reunification services provided by the Department, we must also recognize that in most cases more services might have been provided, and the services which are provided are often imperfect. The standard is not whether the services provided were the best that might have been provided, but whether they were reasonable under the circumstances.” (Elijah R. v. Superior Court (1998) 66 Cal.App.4th 965, 969; In re Misako R., supra, 2 Cal.App.4th at p. 547.)
1. Mother’s learning disabilities
Mother asserts that the Department did not assess or address her learning disabilities in formulating the reunification plan. Mother maintains that it is “unknown how much [she] understood as to written and spoken information given to her,” and “unknown” whether she required “extra time and effort” to satisfy the requirements of her case plan.
At the hearing, Mother testified that she had learning disabilities her entire life, and received assistance for them in junior and senior high school. The medical report from the UCSF Pain Management Center indicates she reported having dyslexia. Mother described her learning disability as a “slight . . . learning process,” “mak[ing] it difficult for me to do things and takes me twice as long.” Mother testified she was offered services in regard to her learning disability after she informed Department child welfare worker Nook Souvannavong, but that she declined the assistance because she “already had help through Rachel [Kraft].” Rachel Kraft, the coordinator of the Positive Parenthood Project, testified that she had known Mother for approximately two years and that Mother attended a 15-week parenting class she taught. She opined that Mother’s dyslexia did not affect her ability to learn any of the information in the parenting class.
Mother’s attorney suggested she might have a speech disorder causing her to yell at child welfare workers, as well as “processing difficulties.
It appears from the record that Mother is referring to Rachel Kraft, the coordinator of the Positive Parenthood Project, who testified at the hearing prior to Mother.
Given Mother’s admitted refusal of services relating to her learning disability, her acknowledgment that she “already had help,” and Kraft’s testimony that Mother’s learning disability did not affect her ability to learn in her parenting class, we cannot say that no substantial evidence supports the court’s finding that the reunification services in this regard were reasonable.
2. Mother’s medical conditions
Mother asserts that the Department did not refer her “to a specialist for endometriosis or syphilis, even though the pain and nausea [secondary to those two conditions] impeded [her] efforts to comply with the Case Plan . . . .”
The record before us reveals that Mother suffered from chronic pain. She was under the care of her primary physician, Dr. Catherine Sant, who reported that Mother’s nausea was relieved by her use of medical marijuana. Dr. Sant and the Department referred her to a pain management specialist at the UCSF Medical Center. Mother, after informing the social worker she could not make the first scheduled appointment in June 2006, saw Dr. Thoha M. Pham on August 3, 2006. Mother informed Dr. Pham that she had “intermittent back pain since approximately age 14, but that [since] approximately 3 years ago she [has] had severe episodes of both low back pain and shoulder pain.” Dr. Pham indicated the back and shoulder pain was of “unknown etiology.” Mother was previously diagnosed with late-stage syphilis, and believed the pain might be related to that diagnosis. Dr. Pham’s medical report indicated that “[c]urrently [Mother’s] blood tests are negative for past syphilitic infection.” This report contains no reference to Mother being diagnosed with endometriosis.
As of August 3, 2006, Mother’s medications were extended release Oxycodone, Baclofen, Advair, albuterol, and medical cannabis. She advised Dr. Pham that her pain was well-managed on this regimen. Dr. Pham advised her of the dangers of “dosage escalation and rapid development of tolerance” with narcotics. Dr. Pham recommended physical therapy, biofeedback, visits with a chronic pain psychologist, and warm-pool exercise therapy. The medical report indicates that Mother “is not interested in these non-pharmacologic modalities at this time.”
The record demonstrates that Mother was referred to a pain management specialist, but refused to follow the physician’s recommendations. While Mother reported having syphilis in the past, her blood tests at the time she visited the UCSF Pain Management Center showed no sign of infection. Nothing in the record indicates she had endometriosis at the time she saw Dr. Pham, or told Dr. Pham she had endometriosis. Dr. Pham’s report indicated that Mother’s pain was of unknown etiology. Dr. Pham suggested numerous other therapies to deal with the pain, but Mother refused any non-drug treatments. She also acknowledged to Dr. Tham that her pain was controlled by the medication she was then taking. We fail to see, based on this record, how the failure to refer Mother to a “syphilis specialist” or a specialist in endometriosis rendered the reunification services unreasonable.
3. Domestic Violence
Mother urges that reunification services were inadequate because she was a victim of domestic violence, yet the Department did not “offer services to her by service providers with expertise in working with victims of domestic violence.” At the outset, we note that the Department repeatedly referred Mother to both individual therapists and couples therapists. The record contains no evidence of whether the therapists to which Mother was referred did or did not have expertise in domestic violence. Nothing in the record suggests that Mother’s inability to fully utilize these counseling services was due to the therapists’ background, or lack thereof, in dealing with domestic violence issues. Mother testified that she saw therapists, but “[they] didn’t help me. To talk about getting a job isn’t going to help me. . . . I find therapy very unhelpful to me because of the problems that are mainly money, it has nothing to do with mental health or anything . . . .” Mother has failed to show that no substantial evidence supports the court’s finding that the reunification services in this regard were reasonable.
4. Court’s discretion to extend reunification services beyond 18 months based on Mother’s “special needs”
While tacitly acknowledging the 18-month limit on reunification services for a child as young as N. S., Mother argues that the court should have exercised its discretion to order further reunification services because she is a “special needs parent.”
When a dependent child is under three years of age, reunification services are usually limited to a period of six months. At the six-month review hearing, on a finding of “substantial probability” that the child will be returned to the parent within the additional period of services, the court may extend services to the 12-month status review hearing. At the latter hearing it may again extend services based on a similar finding, for a period no longer than 18 months from the date of initial removal from the parent’s physical custody. (§§ 361.5, subd. (a), 366.21, subds. (e)-(g).)
Mother relies on In re Elizabeth R. (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 1774 (Elizabeth R.) for the proposition that the court has discretion to extend the 18-month period during which reunification services are offered because she is a “special needs parent.” In Elizabeth R., the mother suffered from a mental illness and was hospitalized for 13 months of the 18-month reunification period. The mother was, nevertheless, in substantial compliance with the reunification plan. (Id. at p. 1780.) She visited her children regularly and appropriately, despite the department’s attempts to limit her visitation, and was participating in mental health services. At the 18-month review hearing, the court indicated its belief it had no discretion to extend the period of reunification services. On appeal, the court held that the juvenile court had “discretion to accommodate the special needs of the family of the mentally ill in the unusual circumstances presented by this case.” (Id. at p. 1787.)
In contrast here, Mother has not shown circumstances unusual in the universe of dependency cases. While Mother claims that it is “unknown” whether her dyslexia affected her ability to understand spoken and written information or caused her to require extra time to complete her case plan, there is no evidence in the record that Mother’s lack of compliance was related to a learning disability. Mother missed approximately one-third of her scheduled visits with N. S., and was asked to leave the visiting room on one occasion for yelling at Father on the telephone rather than visiting with N. S. She also failed to attend about one-third of her scheduled appointments with her therapist, in addition to appointments she cancelled due to illness. The Infant-Parent Program terminated services to her due to her failure to attend. Despite repeated housing referrals and a stable income, Mother failed to obtain housing suitable for her and N. S. We cannot say the trial court abused its discretion by not extending the 18-month period in order to provide more reunification services to Mother.
B. Detriment to N. S.
Mother maintains that no substantial evidence supports the court’s finding that returning N. S. to her custody would create a substantial risk of detriment to his safety and physical and emotional well-being. The court “shall order the return of the child to the physical custody of his or her parent . . . unless the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the return of the child . . . would create a substantial risk of detriment to the safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being of the child.” (§§ 366.21, subds. (e), (f), 366.22, subd. (a).) “The failure of the parent . . . to participate regularly and make substantive progress in court-ordered treatment programs shall be prima facie evidence that return would be detrimental.” (§§366.21, subds. (e), (f), 366.22, subd. (a).) This prima facie evidence establishes a rebuttable presumption. (Evid. Code, § 602.) Here, the court found that Mother had made only minimal progress in completing the requirements of the reunification plan, notably including her failure to find suitable housing despite a stable income, or follow the recommendations of the pain specialist. Moreover, while Mother claims there was “evidence of bonding” between her and N. S., the August 17, 2006 addendum report indicates that N. S. “does not recognize [Mother] as his paren[t].” The child welfare worker testified that Mother is “the one that’s bonded but not the child.” Accordingly, Mother’s assertion that she planned to be a single parent and could obtain housing with “help from service providers” is not sufficient to overcome the presumption that return of N. S. to her custody would create a substantial risk of detriment to the minor.
IV.
DISPOSITION
The petition for writ of mandate is denied on the merits. (§ 366.26, subd. (l)(1)(C); Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.452(e); In re Julie S. (1996) 48 Cal.App.4th 988, 990-991.) Our decision is final immediately. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.264(b)(3).)
We concur: Reardon, J., Sepulveda, J.