Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING. Petition for extraordinary writ Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. CK47419 (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.452.) Marguerite Downing, Judge.
Law Office of Alex Iglesias, Steven Shenfeld and Jasminder Deol, for Petitioner.
No appearance for Respondent.
Andrea Sheridan Ordin, County Counsel, James M. Owens, Assistant County Counsel, and Jeanette Cauble, Deputy County Counsel, for Real Party in Interest.
ASHMANN-GERST, J.
Rebecca R. (mother) has filed a petition for extraordinary writ (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.452) challenging an order of the juvenile court terminating reunification services with her five children, and setting a hearing pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26. We deny the petition.
All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code unless otherwise indicated.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Mother has five children, now ages 5 through 13. On April 7, 2008, the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) received a referral alleging general neglect and emotional abuse of the children. DCFS and the juvenile court had previously supervised the children from 2002 through 2007, after the court sustained a section 300 petition alleging inappropriate physical discipline and neglect of the children, domestic violence between the parents, and substance abuse by the father.
When the DCFS social worker arrived at the family home in April 7, 2008, the home “appeared dirty but organized.” Although there was food in the home, there were no beds for anyone and no toiletries for the family’s hygiene. The front and bathroom windows were broken and covered with wood. Mother denied all the allegations in the referral and claimed the family’s landlord (mother’s aunt) was trying to evict the family. Father stated he did not work because he was blind in one eye and received SSI. Father cared for the youngest child (then age two) while mother worked at McDonalds. Father admitted he drank beer “every so often, ” but not to the point of intoxication. He also denied any domestic violence or inappropriate discipline of the children.
Both parents agreed to submit to a drug test. Father tested positive for cocaine on April 14, 2008; mother’s test was negative.
On April 22, 2008, DCFS conducted a “Team Decision Making” (TDM) meeting that included the parents. Father admitted using cocaine every other weekend, but said his real problem was alcohol. Father said that after the children were returned to the family in November 2007, he relapsed because one of his friends was incarcerated, another friend died, and “the children changed and he was overwhelmed by having to parent them.” Father denied consuming any substance in front of his children; rather, he waited until mother came home from work and then “consume[d] elsewhere.” Father described himself as a good father who just made bad choices.
Mother admitted she knew father had relapsed six months earlier, but she nonetheless allowed father to be the primary caregiver for her two-year-old daughter. Mother stated she was a good mother and her care of the children balanced father’s mistakes.
DCFS determined the children were at risk and detained them in foster care. On April 25, 2008, DCFS filed a section 300 petition alleging that father’s substance abuse had rendered the father periodically unable to provide the children with regular care and supervision. It was further alleged that mother knew father was abusing cocaine and alcohol and failed to take action to protect the children by allowing the father to reside in the home and have unlimited contact with the children.
On April 25, 2008, the juvenile court found DCFS had made a prima facie case for detaining the children. DCFS thereafter conducted a prerelease investigation. Father confirmed that he had relapsed, but told DCFS he had moved out of the home and had entered an outpatient drug program. DCFS confirmed that father had moved out of mother’s home and concluded that the home was adequate for the children and mother was in the process of obtaining child care. Upon the recommendation of DCFS, the juvenile court ordered the children released to mother on May 13, 2008.
On May 22, 2008, the juvenile court sustained the section 300 petition. Following the recommendation of DCFS, the court ordered family maintenance services for mother and family reunification services for father. The children were removed from father’s custody and released to mother. DCFS had the discretion to allow father to return to the family home and to allow mother to monitor his visits with the children. However, DCFS did not allow father to move back into the home and did not liberalize his visits.
As part of the family maintenance plan, DCFS, assisted by Los Angeles Child Guidance, helped mother find a new apartment and provided her with money to pay the first and last month’s rent. However, mother was evicted because of damage to the apartment and because the landlord was not comfortable with mother and her five children living in a one-bedroom apartment. Mother and the children moved to a studio apartment behind the home of the paternal grandparents. That living arrangement also proved unsatisfactory, as the grandparents had domestic violence issues and had failed to pay their rent.
DCFS continued to provide mother with family maintenance services and father with family reunification services. The juvenile court again ordered that mother not monitor father’s visits.
The children remained with mother until September 1, 2009, when she told DCFS she might no longer be able to provide for the children’s basic needs. Mother admitted she was “overwhelmed” by the children’s behaviors and her inability to care for them. Mother was not able to work and keep up with her own therapy, parenting and anger management appointments, as well as the children’s follow-up medical and dental appointments. Mother said she needed some time to “get herself together, and work on getting the father some help, ” before she could reunite with the children.
Father’s drug counselor reported that the children were having contact with their father while he was under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, and that mother had allowed this in contravention of the juvenile court’s orders. Social workers concluded that it was in the children’s best interests to be removed from the home, and mother released the children for placement on September 3, 2009.
On September 9, 2009, DCFS filed a supplemental petition (§ 387). In a report prepared for the disposition hearing on the supplemental petition, DCFS alleged that mother “was overwhelmed and could no longer care for the children at this time.” DCFS interviewed all the children except for the youngest. All reported that they were happy in their foster care placements, understood that their mother could not provide a home for them at that time, and hoped eventually to reunite with both parents. Mother told DCFS that after the children were detained, she and father came together and she was “trying to work on getting the father sober and back with the family so their whole family can be together.” Mother and father were residing in various motels with father’s parents. The juvenile court sustained the section 387 petition, as amended, on October 15, 2009.
The juvenile court terminated father’s reunification services on January 5, 2010, for failure to comply with the case plan. Father has not challenged that order.
In April 2010, DCFS reported that the parents were living together in a rented room. Both parents admitted that their current circumstances prevented them from providing for their children’s needs. DCFS social worker Caprisha Smyles reported that she had “referred [m]other to every program known to worker and [m]other has in the past, exhausted all of the resources and funding available to her including through DCFS, Family Preservation, STOP funds; DPSS Homeless assistance and funding; Hotel vouchers; Linkages; and all other community resources researched by parents, community workers and this CSW.” Ms. Smyles had placed the family on a waiting list for Section 8 housing in 2009, but learned that the wait could be up to eight years. Mother had not been able to find suitable housing that she could afford, and “renting has been difficult for [the] parents due to previous evictions and the behaviors of the children who reportedly [have] in the past damaged the properties rented.”
Mother and father continued to reside together, although they moved several times. The parents visited with the children weekly at various locations, with the visits monitored by foster family agency social workers. Although DCFS told mother on numerous occasions that she could have unmonitored visitation with the children as long as father remained drug and alcohol free and agreed to submit to random drug tests, father was not willing to do so. Mother preferred to have weekly monitored visits so father could participate. Meanwhile, the children continued in foster placement and were doing well.
A few days before her 12-month status review hearing on November 16, 2010, mother claimed she had “had a revelation” and decided she was going to separate from father and his addiction so she could have unmonitored visits with the children and work towards reunification. However, DCFS doubted mother’s sincerity because she had shown “no interest in increasing to unmonitored visitation, until the last minute, days before the last court date.” (Boldface omitted.) Ms. Smyles had also observed text messages mother had sent to her 13-year-old daughter asking to borrow money and coaching her to withhold information from DCFS. After seeing the text messages, DCFS declined to liberalize mother’s visitation “due to mother continuing to show signs of past behaviors of influencing the children to keep secrets, lie about different things, and saying case related things that are inappropriate and may further confuse and emotionally traumatize them.” Mother admitted she had done these things in the past, but said she was “trying to change.”
In a report prepared for the 12-month status review hearing, DCFS noted that the parents had been given ample time to reunify with the children; father had not overcome his addiction, and mother “seems to struggle through maintaining the basic needs of her family.” Although the children had reunified with mother twice before, mother had not been successful at maintaining the children in her home and the children “end up right back in foster care.” Mother had moved into a shelter home with five other families. DCFS reported that the home was “extremely chaotic, ” and the children would not be best served by placing them in such an environment. Meanwhile, the children were “finally in stable permanent homes and have reported they are happy and want to be adopted by current caregivers. The caregivers are willing to maintain an ongoing relationship with the parents, and both caregivers are willing to provide stable and permanent homes for the children.” DCFS recommended that mother’s reunification services be terminated.
A contested 12-month hearing was held on February 17, 2011. In a report prepared for that hearing, DCFS noted that mother had complied with the court’s order for drug testing (in which all test results were negative), had completed parenting and anger management programs, and was undergoing individual therapy. Mother was living in a shelter home and was having unmonitored visits with the children for three hours per week. The children were transported to the shelter home by their caregivers or DCFS staff.
Mother testified at the hearing that she had been living in a shelter home for three months, and had just moved to a new shelter home the day before the hearing. Mother testified that she had separated from father three months prior, “for my children to try to save them and try to save myself.” Mother said that by separating from her husband, she was able to be “better getting my head together focusing on myself and my children better.” Although she was sharing a room for the present, the shelter was willing to give her “a room for me and my children, a whole room, ” and would let her stay as long as she needed to. Mother considered this to be a stable residence. The children visited mother once a week, although the children did not all visit at the same time.
At the time of the hearing, the three boys were placed in one home and the two girls were placed in another. Both placements were prospective adoptive homes.
The juvenile court found by a preponderance of the evidence that returning the children to mother’s custody at that time would create a substantial risk of detriment to their safety, protection, physical and emotional well-being. The court prefaced its remarks by noting that the actual 18-month date was approximately April 15, 2011. Because previous hearings had been continued, the 18-month date was actually only two months hence. The court acknowledged mother had complied with certain aspects of the case plan, including parenting and anger management classes, drug testing, counseling and visitation. As to those issues, mother had made significant progress toward resolving some of the issues that led to the children’s removal. However, mother had “not shown the capacity or the ability to complete the [case plan] objectives and provide for the children’s safety, protection, physical and emotional well-being.” The court emphasized that its concern was “not just the housing” but what it believed to be mother’s codependent relationship with the father. The court also referred to DCFS reports stating that mother was “overwhelmed and cannot provide by herself for all five children, ” and the court noted that “mother still had not visited with all five children at one time.” The court was also concerned that returning the children to mother at that time “would just set them up to be removed again, “ and all the children had indicated that they would rather stay where they are and did not believe mother could provide for them. Further, the court “has not been presented with anything to show that mother has truly separated herself from [father] and made the children her permanent focus.” The court set the matter for a June 15, 2011, hearing to select a permanent plan.
DISCUSSION
Section 366.21, subdivision (f), provides that a permanency planning hearing shall be held no later than 12 months after a child enters foster care. The section further provides that “[t]he court shall order the return of the child to the physical custody of his or her parent or legal guardian unless the court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the return of the child to his or her parent or legal guardian would create a substantial risk of detriment to the safety, protection, or physical or emotional well-being of the child.” If the parent has received reasonable services (and mother does not contend otherwise), the juvenile court may extend services up to a maximum time period not to exceed 18 months after the date the child was originally removed from the parent’s physical custody. The court shall extend the time period to the 18-month date only if it finds there is a substantial probability that the child will be returned and safely maintained in the home within the extended time period. (§ 361.5, subd. (a)(3).) In order to find a substantial probability that the child will be returned to the physical custody of the parent and safely maintained in the home within the extended period, the court must find all of the following: (a) that the parent has consistently and regularly contacted and visited with the child; (b) that the parent has made significant progress in resolving the problems that led to the child’s removal from the home; and (c) that the parent has demonstrated both the capacity and ability both to complete the objectives of his or her treatment plan and to provide for the child’s safety, protection, physical and emotional well-being, and special needs. (§ 366.21, subd. (g)(1)(A)-(C).)
We review the juvenile court’s order under the substantial evidence standard, viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the dependency court’s findings. (In re Misako R. (1991) 2 Cal.App.4th 538, 545.) Where there is any substantial evidence to support the court’s order, contradicted or not, we must affirm the juvenile court’s decision. (In re Tracy Z. (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 107, 113.)
Mother contends there is not substantial evidence to support the juvenile court’s finding that the immediate return of the children to mother’s custody would be detrimental to them. Mother suggests that the court ignored her substantial compliance with the case plan in favor of certain “deficiencies”—mother’s housing situation, her codependency on the father, and lack of stability for the children occasioned by their repeated detentions.
We find substantial evidence supports the court’s finding that it would have been detrimental to return the children to mother at the 12-month hearing. The children were detained from mother three times, most recently because mother was “overwhelmed” and could not care for them. While mother may have considered her present residence to be “stable” when compared with her prior housing situations, in our view a single room in shelter care is not adequate to house mother and her five children together. Although mother testified that she had severed her relationship with father, her “revelation” occurred on the eve of a court hearing at which mother’s reunification services might be terminated. We agree with the juvenile court’s assessment that mother had not been separated from father for an amount of time sufficient to demonstrate that she was free from her codependence on him.
Perhaps the most significant evidence that demonstrates the children would suffer emotional harm by being returned to mother’s custody at the 12-month hearing comes from the children themselves. Mother’s oldest child, a 13-year-old daughter, “expressed her disinterest” in returning home to her parents because she feared that “the same patterns will occur and she will end up right back in the system with a different family.” The daughter told the social worker that she did “not want to risk the chance of losing... the family she has now because she fears her parents will not be able to keep the family stable.” The daughter stated she had “been through ‘this’ too many times and she is finally happy and comfortable in a placement she hopes will remain permanent.” The three boys reported that although they liked visiting with their parents, they were happy in their foster home and wanted to remain there.
Mother also contends there was a substantial likelihood that the children could be returned home by the 18-month date if she received additional reunification services. By the juvenile court’s calculation, the 18-month date would occur on April 15, 2011, which was just two months after the continued 12-month hearing. Mother notes that she had “separated from [f]ather and had obtained her own housing where she could live with her children.” As the juvenile court correctly observed, mother’s alleged separation from father was too recent to persuade the court that mother had resolved her codependency issues. And, as we noted above, mother’s current housing situation was not adequate to house mother and all five children.
DISPOSITION
The petition for extraordinary writ is denied. This opinion is made final forthwith as to this court.
We concur: BOREN, P.J., BOREN CHAVEZ, J.