Taylor v. ADHS
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
ARKANSAS COURT OF APPEALS
DIVISION II
No. CA09-1382
Opinion Delivered
CYNTHIA TAYLOR
APPELLANT
V.
ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF
HUMAN SERVICES
APPELLEE
APRIL 28, 2010
APPEAL FROM THE PULASKI
COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT,
[NO. JJN-07-1061]
HONORABLE WILEY A. BRANTON,
JR., JUDGE
AFFIRMED
JOHN B. ROBBINS, Judge
Appellant Cynthia Taylor appeals from an order terminating her parental rights in five
children: D.B.1, D.B.2, Q.K., B.K., and K.G. The circuit court found that termination was
in the children’s best interest and that the Arkansas Department of Human Services (“DHS”)
proved the following ground for termination:
That a juvenile has been adjudicated by the court to be dependent-neglected and has
continued out of the custody of the parent for twelve (12) months and, despite a
meaningful effort by the department to rehabilitate the parent and correct the
conditions that caused removal, those conditions have not been remedied by the
parent.
Ark. Code Ann. § 9-27-341(b)(3)(B)(i)(a) (Repl. 2009). Appellant argues on appeal that DHS
made no meaningful effort to rehabilitate her and correct the conditions that caused removal.
We disagree and affirm.
Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
A recitation of the factual and procedural history of this case is in order. On May 31,
2007, appellant asked DHS to assume custody of her four children, ages four through nine.
(Appellant’s youngest child was not yet born.) Appellant told DHS that her home had no food
or utilities; that she was not in the right frame of mind to deal with the children; that she had
yelled at and hit the children; and that the two oldest children had not been in school for
months. DHS placed a seventy-two-hour hold on the children, and the circuit court granted
emergency custody to DHS on June 4, 2007. Thereafter, the court held probable-cause and
adjudication hearings, which appellant did not attend. On August 10, 2007, the court
determined that the children were dependent-neglected and that appellant was uncooperative
and appeared to have little interest in her children. The court established a goal of
reunification and ruled that, “if [appellant] comes forward,” DHS should offer the following
services: supervised visitation, a psychological evaluation, a counseling referral, a medications
assessment, random drug-and-alcohol screens, a drug-and-alcohol assessment in the event of
a positive screen, parenting classes, transportation assistance, and DNA testing to determine
the children’s paternity. The court also ordered appellant to maintain stable housing and
employment.
On December 12, 2007, the circuit court held a permanency-planning hearing and
changed the goal of the case to termination of parental rights. The court found that appellant
had “done nothing in this case to rehabilitate herself or her situation” but that she “showed
up in Court today with a serious attitude, acting as if she knows everything and is smarter
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
than everyone else.” The court ordered appellant to undergo a psychological evaluation, to
submit to random drug-and-alcohol screens, to submit to in-patient drug rehabilitation, to
attend parenting classes, and to establish stable housing and employment. The court also
ordered DHS to provide appellant with transportation, drug-and-alcohol screens, and referrals
for the listed services.
The court conducted a termination hearing on February 19, 2008, but declined to
terminate appellant’s parental rights at that time. The court found that DHS had not provided
the services set out in the previous order and that, as a result, it was impossible to determine
if appellant had made any progress in the case. The court resumed the goal of reunification
and maintained that goal throughout the next several review periods, citing DHS’s need to
exercise greater diligence in furnishing certain services. However, in a permanency-planning
order entered August 19, 2008, the court found that DHS had made a reasonable effort to
achieve the goal of reunification, noting that DHS had provided a packet that included a case
plan, documentation of referrals, drug-screen results, and a paternity test. Near this same time,
the court also adjudicated the newborn K.G. dependent-neglected.
In its next permanency-planning order, dated January 8, 2009, the court allowed
appellant to resume visitation, which had been suspended due to unfounded allegations of
sexual abuse, and allowed appellant to forego in-patient drug rehabilitation, given her history
of only a few positive drug screens. However, the court found that appellant had not
undergone drug screens or therapy as ordered since the previous hearing and warned appellant
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
that, if she did not maintain therapy attendance and negative drug-test results, the goal of the
case would be changed to termination of parental rights. The court also found that DHS had
made reasonable efforts to finalize a permanency plan.
On April 7, 2009, the court changed the goal of the case to termination of parental
rights. The court found that DHS had made reasonable efforts to provide reunification
services but that appellant had missed family-therapy appointments, missed visits with her
children, tested positive for drugs, was recently incarcerated, and had outstanding warrants for
her arrest. After DHS filed a petition to terminate appellant’s parental rights, the court held
a termination hearing on August 25, 2009. By that point, the four oldest children had been
out of appellant’s custody for more than two years, and the youngest child for just over one
year.
At the termination hearing, DHS witnesses testified that appellant had missed several
family-therapy appointments in the months before the hearing and that, despite starting
individual counseling in November 2008, she had not been regular in her attendance until
the court changed the goal of the case to termination of parental rights four months earlier.
The witnesses also testified that appellant did not maintain contact with DHS; that she had
not notified DHS of her recent move to Conway; that she had not visited her youngest child
since April 29, 2009; that she tested positive for marijuana earlier in 2009; and that she did
not appear for a drug screen as promised following an August 20, 2009 staff meeting. DHS
additionally provided testimony that it had referred appellant for numerous services in August
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
2008, including a drug-and-alcohol assessment, drug treatment, and medication management
but that appellant did not partake of those services.
Psychologist Dr. Paul Deyoub testified that appellant had a personality disorder, which
required long-term individual therapy to stand a chance of improving. Dr. Deyoub opined
that appellant’s prognosis for improvement was poor. Appellant’s individual therapist, Helen
Chambers, testified that appellant was making progress but that she could need as much as
another year to recover from her psychological problems.
Appellant testified that she was living in Conway with her sister and her sister’s five
children in a three-bedroom home and that she had just started a new job the previous day.
She admitted to missing more therapy appointments than she attended in 2008 and to missing
some therapy appointments in 2009. She also acknowledged testing positive on a drug screen
and failing to visit her one-year-old baby, who she felt was “rejecting” her. Appellant said that
she was in no position to take the children but that she would like more time to work on
reunification.
After the hearing, the court entered an order terminating appellant’s parental rights.1
The court found that the children were adoptable; that termination of appellant’s parental
rights was in the children’s best interest; and that DHS proved grounds for termination. The
court also determined that DHS made reasonable efforts to reunify the family and rehabilitate
appellant but, despite DHS’s meaningful efforts, appellant failed to correct the conditions that
The court also terminated the parental rights of four putative fathers, but those
terminations are not on appeal.
1
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
caused the children’s removal. On appeal, appellant does not challenge the circuit court’s bestinterest finding or its finding that she failed to remedy the conditions that caused the
children’s removal. Her sole point of contention is that DHS failed to provide meaningful
reunification services in a timely manner.
We note at the outset that appellant’s argument is subject to a procedural bar. In two
permanency-planning orders entered prior to the termination hearing—the order dated
August 19, 2008, and the order dated April 7, 2009—he circuit court found that DHS had
made reasonable efforts to reunify the family. Appellant did not appeal from those orders. We
have held in dependency-neglect cases that an appellant’s failure to appeal from earlier orders
containing the finding complained of precludes our review of that finding. See Sparkman v.
Ark. Dep’t of Human Servs., 96 Ark. App. 363, 366, 242 S.W.3d 282, 284 (2006) (refusing to
consider an argument that DHS failed to make meaningful efforts to reunify the family where
the appellant did not appeal from an earlier permanency-planning order finding reasonable
efforts). See also White v. Ark. Dep’t of Human Servs., 2009 Ark. App. 609, at 11, ___ S.W.3d
___, ___; Jones-Lee v. Ark. Dep’t of Human Servs., 2009 Ark. App. 160, at 18–19, ___ S.W.3d
___, ___.
In any event, appellant’s arguments do not warrant reversal on the merits. While DHS
did not provide adequate services to appellant during the first year of the case, it did begin
providing referrals by August 2008, approximately one year before the termination hearing.
The circuit court determined at that point that DHS had resumed reasonable efforts to reunify
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Cite as 2010 Ark. App. 362
the family, and the court continued to make that finding during the remainder of the case.
The court also gave appellant a full year before the August 2009 termination hearing in which
to utilize services such as counseling, psychological evaluation, drug-and-alcohol assessment,
drug treatment, medication management, drug screens, and visitation. Yet the evidence shows
that appellant either failed to take advantage of many of those services or participated in them
inconsistently. Under these circumstances, we decline to hold that the circuit court clearly
erred in finding that DHS made a meaningful effort to rehabilitate appellant. The court may
well have determined that, in the last year of the case, the fault lay not with DHS but with
appellant.
Affirmed.
KINARD and MARSHALL, JJ., agree.
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