Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING; petition for extraordinary relief. Marilyn Mackel, Commissioner. Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. CK04676
Law Offices of Katherine Anderson, Victoria Doherty and Anuradha Khemka for Petitioner.
No appearance for Respondent.
Raymond G. Fortner, Jr., County Counsel, James M. Owens, Assistant County Counsel, and William D. Thetford, Principal Deputy County Counsel for Real Party in Interest.
ASHMANN-GERST J.
N.V., the presumed father (father) of J.V. (minor), filed a petition for extraordinary relief pursuant to California Rules of Court, rule 8.452, contending that the juvenile court’s order terminating reunification services and setting a Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26 permanency planning hearing for five-year old minor was an abuse of discretion. Father claims that the juvenile court erred in finding that reasonable reunification services had been provided and in failing to extend services beyond the section 366.22 18-month date. We deny the petition.
All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The extensive procedural history of this case is well-known to the parties. It will be addressed only insofar as it relates to the two issues raised by father’s petition.
In April 2005, the juvenile court ordered three-year-old minor detained from his parents after the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) discovered that father was a registered sex offender and had a history of sexually abusing minor’s half-sister, V., and another child.
Mother died during the pendency of the case.
In July 2005, the juvenile court sustained a petition that alleged: father was a registered sex offender; he had exposed himself to V., had intercourse with her, and attempted to sodomize her; he had sexually abused another minor; and he had a criminal history that included convictions for possession of a controlled substance. The petition also alleged that the mother had failed to reunify with V., who had become a juvenile court dependent as a result of father’s sexual abuse, and that the mother had allowed father unfettered and unsupervised contact with minor.
By June 2006, father had completed a court-ordered parenting class, drug rehabilitation, and individual counseling. He was regularly attending a Child Sexual Abuse Program (CASP). Therapists at the CASP program reported that father was not making progress in treatment because he did not admit having molested V. The juvenile court continued father’s reunification services to a section 366.22 date in October 2006, and ordered that he and minor be in conjoint therapy as soon as possible.
The section 366.22 hearing was ultimately continued from October 2006 to mid-April 2007, due to intervening petitions. A section 387 petition alleged that minor had suffered physical abuse while in placement with his maternal aunt and uncle. A section 342 supplemental petition alleged that father had sexually abused minor during unmonitored visits.
On April 11, 2007, the juvenile court began to hear contested matters: the section 387 petition regarding maternal aunt and uncle, disposition of the section 342 supplemental petition regarding father, and a contested section 366.22 18-month review hearing. The evidentiary portion of the hearings continued on April 23-25, 2007.
The juvenile court sustained the section 387 and section 342 petitions as amended.
The section 366.22 hearing concluded on May 11, 2007, following the parties’ submission of written closing arguments. Throughout the section 366.22 hearing, father argued that minor should immediately be released to him.
On May 11, 2007, the juvenile court found that DCFS had made reasonable efforts to enable minor to safely return to father, that father was in substantial compliance with his case plan, but that he had not made significant progress in the CASP sexual abuse perpetrator program. Accordingly, the juvenile court terminated reunification services and set a section 366.26 hearing.
The juvenile court made additional orders for minor’s welfare. It instructed DCFS to find a new therapist for minor, one who was a licensed clinical social worker or psychologist, culturally sensitive, and preferably bilingual. It ordered DCFS to inform the therapist about minor’s exposure to negative statements about father, and to provide minor’s and father’s therapists with copies of an Evidence Code section 730 evaluation of father. The juvenile court also ordered monitored visitation for father and maternal aunt and uncle, required that father participate in minor’s treatment, and ordered DCFS to make arrangements for minor to attend some of father’s band’s performances. At the close of the hearing, the juvenile court stated its intention, based upon new evidence, to reverse its earlier findings with respect to the section 342 petition that it had previously sustained against father.
DISCUSSION
Father’s sole contentions are that he and minor received inadequate reunification services and that the juvenile court abused its discretion by failing to extend services beyond the 18-month review hearing.
1. Adequacy of Reunification Services
Father argues that he and minor received inadequate reunification services because: (1) individual counseling for minor, which the juvenile court had ordered in January 2006, did not begin until May 2006; (2) DCFS did not comply with a June 2006 order that required minor and father be in conjoint therapy as soon as possible; and (3) the social worker failed to follow or to inform the juvenile court about a recommendation made in February 2007, by a therapist with the Central Los Angeles Sexual Abuse Unit (CLASAU), that the father’s lack of progress in the CASP program be addressed by either holding a case conference with the father’s current therapists, or by placing father in individual rather than group treatment.
The contention that reunification services were inadequate is raised in this court in the first instance. The crux of father’s written and oral argument at the section 366.26 hearing was that minor should be returned to him, not that DCFS had rendered inadequate services.
Father’s written argument contended that he had fully complied with his court-ordered treatment plan and that he posed no danger to minor. Although he asserted that the DCFS social worker had failed to refer him to CLASAU, the charge was made in passing, and then only as evidence of the social worker’s purported bias against him.
Similarly, at the May 11, 2007 hearing, father argued that minor should be immediately returned to him, because DCFS had failed to submit any evidence that he posed a risk to his son. Father objected to the juvenile court’s orders setting the section 366.26 hearing and requiring that his visits be monitored, but he posed no objection to the juvenile court’s finding that DCFS had provided reasonable reunification services. His sole mention of reunification services was in expressing skepticism that DCFS and the social worker, in light of their past performance, would follow the juvenile court’s orders for conjoint therapy once the juvenile court terminated reunification services and set a section 366.26 hearing date.
“As a general rule, a party is precluded from urging on appeal any point not raised in the trial court. Any other rule would permit a party to play fast and loose with the administration of justice by deliberately standing by without making an objection of which he is aware. [Citation.]” (In re Richard K. (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 580, 590.) Moreover, a party is not permitted to change his position and adopt a new and different theory on appeal. (Ernst v. Searle (1933) 218 Cal. 233, 240-241.)
In this instance, father allowed the proceedings in juvenile court to rest on whether minor could be returned to him immediately, and he did not challenge the reasonableness of reunification services. Accordingly, he forfeited the right to challenge in this court the juvenile court’s finding that services were adequate.
Father also contends that reunification services were inadequate because the DCFS social worker failed to give him new individual counseling referrals in August 2006, when the social worker erroneously believed that he had not complied with the individual counseling component of his case plan. Independent of the dubious logic of the argument, father provides no citation to the record regarding this charge. Every appellate brief must support any reference to a matter in the record by a citation to the volume and page where it appears. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(C).) Because father failed to do so, this contention is forfeited on this ground as well.
Apart from the procedural bar to father’s claim, substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s finding that the services provided by DCFS were reasonable.
Services are reasonable if “the supervising agency identified the problems leading to the loss of custody, offered services designed to remedy those problems, maintained reasonable contact with the parents during the course of the service plan, and made reasonable efforts to assist the parents in areas where compliance proved difficult . . . .” (In re Riva M. (1991) 235 Cal.App.3d 403, 414.) In determining whether substantial evidence supports the court’s finding that services were reasonable, we view the record in the light most favorable to the judgment. (Angela S. v. Superior Court (1995) 36 Cal.App.4th 758, 762.)
Here, the record shows that as of June 2006, father had completed all the components of his court-ordered treatment plan except for sexual abuse perpetrator treatment. Following the June 2006 hearing, the social worker worked with father to schedule a number of visits and arrange monitors for the visits. She referred minor to the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health for a psychological evaluation, and coordinated an Evidence Code section 730 evaluation of father.
Between June 2006 and May 2007, the social worker contacted minor’s foster parents, teachers and therapists, as well as father’s therapists, for updates on minor’s and father’s progress. Based on minor’s therapist’s expressed concerns about minor’s placement with his maternal aunt and uncle, the social worker re-evaluated the placement, detained minor from maternal aunt and uncle, and put him in two subsequent placements.
Father is correct in pointing out that the conjoint therapy that the juvenile court ordered in June 2006 take place “as soon as possible” never occurred. But in the absence of assessments by minor’s therapists that minor was ready for conjoint therapy, there is no basis for finding that deferring conjoint therapy constituted a denial of services.
And, contrary to father’s assertion, the DCFS social worker did bring to the juvenile court’s attention the February 2007 opinion of a CLASAU therapist, that father might respond better to individual than to group sexual abuse perpetrator treatment. The social worker attached the CLASAU therapist’s e-mail to a court report filed two weeks after the e-mail was received. The record is silent concerning whether the social worker followed through with the suggestion.
In short, although services were not perfect, substantial evidence supports the juvenile court’s finding that they were reasonable under the circumstances.
2. Extension of Reunification Services
Father next contends that he “should have been afforded more time to reunify with Jesse [sic], with proper services in place and Jesse [sic] not being influenced by others against his Father.” As he did with respect to the adequacy of services, father forfeited his right to argue that reunification services should have been extended past the 18-month review date, because he did not raise the issue in the first instance in the juvenile court. The record shows that father did not broach extending services in any respect, either in his written argument for the 18-month review hearing, or orally at the hearing.
While the juvenile court may order that reunification services be extended beyond an 18-month hearing where services were inadequate or where there are extraordinary impediments to a parent’s participation in a case plan (see, e.g., Denny H. v. Superior Court (2005) 131 Cal.App.4th 1501, 1510; Mark N. v. Superior Court (1998) 60 Cal.App.4th 996, 1012; In re Elizabeth R. (1995) 35 Cal.App.4th 1774, 1778), nothing in the record establishes either of these circumstances. Certainly the record does not reflect a situation in which the juvenile court’s discretion can only be exercised in father’s favor, as father suggests.
DISPOSITION
The petition for extraordinary relief is denied, and the order to show cause is discharged. The stay heretofore issued is ordered dissolved.
We concur: BOREN, P. J.; CHAVEZ, J.