In re G.H.
Annotate this CaseA.H. (Mother) and J.H. (Father) appealed a juvenile court’s order terminating their parental rights to their two-year-old son, G.H., at the permanent plan selection and implementation hearing held under California Welfare and Institutions Code section 366.26. G.H. was detained from his parents’ custody two days after he was born when both he and Mother tested positive for methamphetamine. Mother and Father were homeless at the time, and had been struggling with methamphetamine abuse for approximately eight years. Father admitted he did not discourage Mother’s drug use during pregnancy. The day before G.H. was detained, Mother, G.H.’s maternal great aunt, and his maternal grandmother denied Native American ancestry. Father claimed he was a “small percent” Cherokee, but he acknowledged he was not registered as a member of the tribe. On appeal, Mother and Father contend the juvenile court erred in finding that a statutory exception to terminating the parental rights of an adoptable child did not apply. They also contended the Orange County Social Services Agency (SSA) and the court did not meet their obligations under the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA) and related state law to investigate G.H.’s Native American background. The Court of Appeal found nothing in the record suggested SSA or the court made any effort to use social media as a means of contacting the paternal grandmother for the purposes of determining ancestry, so it conditionally reversed the termination and remanded for the agency to conduct further inquiry.
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