In re Amanda A.

• Decision Date: 27 June 2000
• Docket Number: (AC 19810)
• Citation: 755 A.2d 243,58 Conn. App. 451
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: IN RE AMANDA A. ET AL.

58 Conn. App. 451

755 A.2d 243

IN RE AMANDA A. ET AL.¹

(AC 19810)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued March 27, 2000.

Officially released June 27, 2000.

Foti, Landau and Pellegrino, JS. Raymond J. Rigat, for the appellant (respondent mother).

Carmel A. Motherway, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and Susan T. Pearlman, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (petitioner).

Opinion

FOTI, J.

The respondent mother² appeals from the judgments of the trial court terminating her parental rights with respect to her three minor children. On appeal, the respondent claims that (1) the court improperly found that the department of children and families (department) made reasonable efforts at reunification, (2) she was denied her constitutional rights in having her parental rights terminated solely because of her mental illness, (3) the court failed to order a competency evaluation and to appoint a guardian ad litem and (4) her attorney rendered ineffective assistance by not moving for a competency evaluation and the appointment of a guardian ad litem. We affirm the judgments of the trial court.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to this appeal. On December 19, 1996, the children were adjudicated uncared for and committed to the care and custody of the department. On December 9, 1997, the commissioner of children and families (commissioner) filed petitions for the termination of parental rights of the respondent with respect to her three children.

On the basis of the testimony and evidence offered at trial, as interpreted in light of the children's prior record with the department, and with judicial notice taken of all prior court actions, the court made certain findings of fact. The court found that the respondent "has had a history of mental health problems of varying severity since her adolescence, which have been compounded by her use of cocaine. She is herself a [person] who was placed in foster care when she was six, after her mother died. For her, the child protection system failed in its promise to protect and nurture children, as she was abused and neglected in the foster home in which she was placed. Her mental health and other adjustment difficulties led her to a brief placement with relatives, which was disrupted in part due to her actingout, and then to residential placement until she reached the age of majority. It is a background of disruption and gross parental failures, which ill prepared and equipped her for parenting when she became a mother herself. Indeed, some of the professionals evaluating her see the intergenerational difficulties as having significant impact on [the respondent's] life and the lives of her three children."

Furthermore, the court found that the respondent has been uncommunicative and hostile toward the department because of its involvement in her life, and that there is not a great amount of information about the circumstances of her life during the time when her children were conceived. From the outset, the respondent has had ongoing mental health and drug use problems that led to the placement of the children with the department on a number of occasions. Because it appeared that the respondent had the capacity to improve her parenting and to provide for her three children, they were returned to her after each removal under the condition that she would parent them. Unfortunately, the respondent was not able to do so adequately. Consequently, the children were last removed from the respondent on January 30, 1996, and have been in foster care since that time.

During the trial proceedings, the commissioner alleged that the respondent has failed to achieve such a degree of personal rehabilitation as would encourage the belief that, within a reasonable time, taking into consideration the age and needs of her children, she could assume a responsible position in their lives.³ At trial, the respondent filed a motion to dismiss contending that the department failed to comply with a May 19, 1998 court order permitting the respondent to have therapeutic visitation with her children.⁴ After the trial concluded on January 15, 1999, the court granted the termination petitions as to the respondent, finding that the reunification efforts "continued well past beyond the time it was excruciatingly clear that [the respondent] could not and did not benefit from such efforts." The court denied the respondent's motion for a dismissal or a continuance. This appeal followed. Additional facts will be set forth where necessary.

I

The respondent first claims that the court improperly found that the commissioner proved by clear and convincing evidence that reasonable efforts at reunification had been made. We do not agree.

"It is axiomatic that in seeking to terminate parental rights, the commissioner must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the department made reasonable efforts to reunify the parent and child as required by [General Statutes] § 17a-112 (c) (1). See In re Eden F., 250 Conn. 674, 695 n.23, 741 A.2d 873 (1999). We also note that `[t]he statutory criteria must be strictly complied with before termination can be accomplished. In re Juvenile Appeal (Docket No. 9489), 183 Conn. 11, 13, 438 A.2d 801 (1981); In re Juvenile Appeal (Anonymous), [177 Conn. 648, 672, 420 A.2d 875 (1979)].' In re Michael M., 29 Conn. App. 112, 119, 614 A.2d 832 (1992)." In re Savanna M., 55 Conn. App. 807, 811, 740 A.2d 484 (1999).

On appeal, our function is to determine whether the trial court's conclusion was legally correct and factually supported; every reasonable presumption is made in favor of the trial court's ruling and we will disturb the findings of the trial court in either the adjudication or disposition phases only if they are clearly erroneous. In re Tabitha T., 51 Conn. App. 595, 599, 722 A.2d 1232 (1999).

"Before a termination of parental rights can be granted, the trial court must be convinced that the department has made reasonable efforts to reunite the [children with the] family. The term reasonable efforts was recently addressed by this court: Turning to the statutory scheme encompassing the termination of the parental rights of a child committed to the department, the statute imposes on the department the duty, inter alia, to make reasonable efforts to reunite the child or children with the parents. The word reasonable is the linchpin on which the department's efforts in a particular set of circumstances are to be adjudged, using the clear and convincing standard of proof. Neither the word reasonable nor the word efforts is, however, defined by our legislature or by the federal act from which the requirement was drawn.... [R]easonable efforts means doing everything reasonable, not everything possible." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) In re Antonio M., 56 Conn. App. 534, 546, 744 A.2d 915 (2000).

The respondent claims that it "was cruel and outrageous to allow her the custody of her children throughout long periods of this time [1990-99], whereupon her bond with the children was nurtured and encouraged, only to have her children taken away at intervals where incomplete and nonexistent services were offered her for purposes of rehabilitation." She further alleges that because she has had "psychotic episodes with hallucinations," it is unfair to place any burden on her to seek mental health treatment without "being guided to it by the appropriate mental health agencies which exist in our state for this very purpose."⁵

During the five day trial, the court heard testimony from the department's social workers, two psychologist evaluators, the foster parents of the children, the director of a substance abuse treatment agency who had completed a drug evaluation of the respondent, a community parent educator, a detective from the New Haven police department, the therapists who conducted therapeutic supervised visits with the respondent and the three children in two separate programs, and from the respondent. The court also had many exhibits, including transcripts of another psychologist's evaluation and the respondent's mental health therapist.

The court's memorandum of decision is replete with findings, supported in the record, concerning the department's efforts at reunification. There existed various in-home reunification services in place in 1995 when the children were returned to the respondent,⁶ including a parent educator, services for the respondent from Milford Mental Health, and Birth to Three services. The department, following the children's removal in 1996, attempted to assist the respondent in building a therapeutic support team to deal with her ongoing mental health and drug problems.⁷ The respondent also was provided with supervised therapeutic visitation with the children at Southern Connecticut State University Family Counseling; she absented herself from these visits for approximately ten months in 1997 and 1998.

We are not persuaded, considering the circumstances of this case, that the court's conclusion that the department made reasonable efforts to reunite the family was clearly erroneous. There was clear and convincing evidence that the department did all it reasonably could do to reunify the respondent with her children and that it was the conduct of the respondent that led to the failure of those efforts.

II

The respondent next alleges that she was deprived of equal protection under the law⁸ because the department failed to provide and coordinate adequate mental health services to her.⁹ She claims that "because greater services were not provided ... with respect to her mental disability, the application of the failure to rehabilitate ground was unconstitutional as it applied to the respondent." She seeks review under State v. Golding, 213 Conn. 233, 239-40, 567 A.2d 823 (1989),¹⁰ but has failed to furnish a record adequate for this claim to be...