In the Int. of: J.B., Appeal of: H.B.

• Court: Superior Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: February 10, 2026
• Docket: 983 WDA 2025
• Status: Unpublished
• Author: Bowes

Opinion

J-S46004-25

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37

IN THE INTEREST OF: J.B., A MINOR : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF : PENNSYLVANIA : APPEAL OF: H.B., MOTHER : : : : : : No. 983 WDA 2025

Appeal from the Order Entered July 22, 2025 In the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County Orphans' Court at No(s): CP-02-AP-0000089-2024

BEFORE: BOWES, J., NICHOLS, J., and KING, J.

MEMORANDUM BY BOWES, J.: FILED: February 10, 2026

H.B. (“Mother”) appeals from the order terminating her parental rights

as to her son J.B., born in January 2023.1 We affirm.

We glean the following history from the record. Mother prematurely

gave birth to J.B. while she was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit. Within a

matter of days, Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families

(“CYF”) was granted emergency protective custody of J.B. At the ensuing

shelter care hearing, Mother exhibited significant drug, alcohol, and mental

health concerns, and she explained that she would be homeless upon release

from her inpatient stay. J.B. remained in the NICU for an extended period

and was adjudicated dependent in February of 2023. Mother’s court-ordered ____________________________________________

1 Mother identified C.P. (“Father”) as J.B.’s father. The court granted CYF’s petitions to terminate the parental rights of both Father and any unknown father. Notably, Father withdrew his contest to the termination petition and did not appeal the court’s order. J-S46004-25

goals required her to: (1) continue with her mental health treatment and

follow all recommendations; (2) participate in a drug and alcohol evaluation

and undergo any recommended counseling; (3) comply with random urine

screens; (4) attend supervised visits with J.B.; and (5) obtain housing. See

N.T., 3/21/25, at 105.

Thereafter, Mother secured appropriate housing and consistently visited

J.B. However, she only sporadically engaged with the other services and did

not fulfill her remaining goals. Specifically, as will be discussed at length

below, she did not address her mental health. Additionally, Mother’s behavior

became concerning to CYF as she began to follow CYF supervisors to their

vehicles after visits at her residence and attempted to inhibit their egress.

Ultimately, following Mother’s apparent admission to an in-patient treatment

facility in October 2023, CYF was permitted to move visits from Mother’s

residence to the CYF office. Her alarming behavior towards CYF supervisors

nonetheless continued. On December 21, 2023, Mother placed unidentified

eye drops into J.B.’s eye during a supervised visit at the CYF office, causing

chemical conjunctivitis. Upon CYF’s motion, the court suspended visitation,

and Mother has had no contact with J.B. since that visit.

On September 23, 2024, CYF filed a petition to terminate Mother’s

parental rights pursuant to 23 Pa.C.S. § 2511(a)(2), (5), and (8). The court

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held two termination hearings, with Mother represented by counsel.2 The first

hearing occurred on March 21, 2025, at which the court heard testimony from,

inter alia, Patricia Pepe, Ph.D., and CYF caseworkers Rhianna Diana and Ciera

James. Relevantly, Mother attended approximately thirteen of her thirty-nine

scheduled drug screens between February 19, 2023, and March 21, 2025, and

tested positive for Adderall on September 3 and October 30 of 2024, as well

as for THC on the October screen.

Dr. Pepe testified as an expert in child psychology and forensic

psychology. She conducted a psychological evaluation of Mother on January

25, 2024, at which time Mother exhibited signs of psychosis, rendering it

difficult to complete the assessment. Nonetheless, Dr. Pepe diagnosed Mother

with schizophrenia. Although Mother has intermittently sought treatment, she

refuses to acknowledge a schizophrenia diagnosis and consequently will

neither seek counseling nor take medication for that disorder. Instead, she

has maintained that she suffers from ADHD and is prescribed Adderall.

Dr. Pepe unsuccessfully attempted to conduct an updated evaluation of

Mother on January 15, 2025. However, she was able to perform an

interactional evaluation with J.B. and his then-current foster family. She

opined that Mother and J.B. did not have a bond in light of J.B.’s age and the ____________________________________________

2 J.B. was represented by Lexus Cersosimo, Esquire, from KidsVoice, as guardian ad litem and legal counsel. The orphans’ court found no conflict in Attorney Cersosimo representing both his legal and best interests given his age and inability to articulate a preference. Although not part of this appeal, we note that this matter was consolidated with a goal change request on the dependency docket.

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length of time he had been without contact from Mother. Dr. Pepe explained

that the prospect of J.B. being moved to a new foster family would not affect

her concerns about Mother’s ability to parent J.B.

At the conclusion of the hearing, the court turned to the dependency

portion of the hearing and considered CYF’s motion to change J.B.’s foster

placement. Although J.B. had been with the same family for approximately

one year and achieved success there, they were no longer willing to serve as

foster parents because they felt threatened by Mother’s repeated text

messages to return her son, especially in light of the fact that she was not

supposed to have had access to their identities or contact information.

Attorney Cersosimo concurred with the requested change and asked that any

new placement details be kept confidential from Mother. The court granted

CYF’s request to change J.B.’s placement, directed that the identities and

location of the new family remain private, and warned Mother not to seek

them out. J.B. has been in that pre-adoptive foster home since April 8, 2025.

The second termination hearing was postponed to July 10, 2025,

because Mother had again been involuntarily hospitalized. At the hearing, the

court received testimony from Mother’s therapist at Pittsburgh Mercy

Behavioral Health (“Mercy”), Katie Halloran; CYF supervisor Wendy Dunbar-

Kraus regarding recent updates; and Mother.

Mother testified that she has ADHD and anxiety, and that she has begun

consistent treatment at Mercy, having completed intensive outpatient therapy

earlier in 2025 and begun individual therapy in February of 2025. Mother

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explained that she takes her prescribed medications when she deems it

necessary but finds more benefit from attending church, engaging in individual

therapy, and absorbing Vitamin D from the sun. However, she also admitted

to purposefully abusing an unknown drug, likely Adderall, in April. See N.T.,

7/10/25, at 74.

Having failed to address her true diagnoses, Mother has unsurprisingly

been involuntarily committed four times since J.B.’s birth for episodes of acute

psychosis, the most recent occurring in April 2025 while she was engaged in

the aforementioned intensive outpatient program. CYF voiced concerns with

Mother’s inability to address her mental health, noting “that, throughout the

life of the case, [M]other has jumped around from treatment to treatment to

treatment, not focusing on what the professionals have been recommending

. . . for her to focus on; medication management, the appropriate treatment.”

N.T., 3/21/25, at 135. Simply put: “Her current telehealth individual sessions

are not addressing the . . . diagnosis which led to her crisis and

hospitalization.” N.T., 7/10/25, at 30-31.

CYF relayed that J.B.’s current foster parents take care of all his needs,

ensure that he attends medical appointments, and have assisted him in being

successfully discharged from physical therapy and to soon graduate from

occupational therapy. “He looks to them for love and affection, goes to them

when he needs help.” Id. at 32. CYF opined: “Given that he has been in

care most of or his entire life and [M]other hasn’t been able to maintain a

period of consistent mental health stability, [F]ather’s not engaged, the

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agency does believe that the best interest would be adoption.” Id. at 32.

Attorney Cersosimo also asked the court to grant the termination petitions as

in J.B.’s best and legal interests. Id. at 98.

The court took the matter under advisement. On July 11, 2025, it

terminated Mother’s parental rights pursuant to § 2511(a)(2), (a)(8), and

(b).3 This timely appeal followed. Both Mother and the orphans’ court

complied with the requirements of Pa.R.A.P. 1925. In this Court, Mother

raises the following issues for our consideration:

I. Did the [orphans’] court err in granting the petition for the involuntary termination of parental rights under 23 Pa.C.S. § 2511(a)(2) when there was not clear and convincing evidence that Mother’s chosen holistic treatment options for her mental health needs would cause the child to go without proper care and treatment?

II. Did the [orphans’] court err in granting the petition for involuntary termination of parental rights under 23 Pa.C.S. § 2511(a)(8) when the [orphans’] court’s failure to restore Mother’s visits was also a reason for granting the petition?

III. Did the [orphans’] court err in finding that the child’s needs and welfare were better served by a placement he had only just met?

Mother’s brief at 6.

On appeals from termination petitions, this Court must accept the

orphans’ court’s findings of fact and credibility determinations so long as they

have record support. See In re E.J.C., 335 A.3d 1222, 1229 (Pa.Super.

____________________________________________

3 Attorney Cersosimo continues to argue on appeal that termination serves J.B.’s best interests. See J.B.’s brief at 28-30.

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2025). If they are so supported, we are then tasked with determining whether

the “court made an error of law or abused its discretion. A decision may be

reversed for an abuse of discretion only upon demonstration of manifest

unreasonableness, partiality, prejudice, bias, or ill-will. The [orphans’] court’s

decision, however, should not be reversed merely because the record would

support a different result.” Id. (cleaned up). We grant such deference to the

orphans’ court because it “often ha[s] first-hand observations of the parties

spanning multiple hearings.” Id. (cleaned up).

Involuntary termination is governed by 23 Pa.C.S. § 2511, which sets

forth a bifurcated framework. First, the orphans’ court must assess whether

the agency has established, by clear and convincing evidence, that

termination is warranted pursuant to one of the grounds outlined in § 2511(a).

Id. at 1230. Only then does the court proceed to § 2511(b), “which focuses

upon the child’s developmental, physical, and emotional needs and welfare.”

Id. (cleaned up). This Court need only agree with the orphans’ court’s

conclusions as to one subsection of § 2511(a), as well as § 2511(b), to affirm.

Id. Presently, we focus upon § 2511(a)(2) and (b). Those provisions state

as follows:

(a) General rule.--The rights of a parent in regard to a child may be terminated after a petition filed on any of the following grounds:

....

(2) The repeated and continued incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal of the parent has caused the child to be without

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essential parental care, control or subsistence necessary for his physical or mental well-being and the conditions and causes of the incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal cannot or will not be remedied by the parent.

(b) Other considerations.--The court in terminating the rights of a parent shall give primary consideration to the developmental, physical and emotional needs and welfare of the child. The rights of a parent shall not be terminated solely on the basis of environmental factors such as inadequate housing, furnishings, income, clothing and medical care if found to be beyond the control of the parent. . . .

23 Pa.C.S. § 2511.

We have expanded upon the requirements for termination pursuant to

§ 2511(a)(2) as follows:

The grounds for termination of parental rights under [§] 2511(a)(2), due to parental incapacity that cannot be remedied, are not limited to affirmative misconduct; to the contrary[,] those grounds may include acts of refusal as well as incapacity to perform parental duties. Parents are required to make diligent efforts towards the reasonably prompt assumption of full parental responsibilities. Under [§] 2511(a)(2), the petitioner for involuntary termination must prove (1) repeated and continued incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal; (2) that such incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal caused the child to be without essential parental care, control or subsistence; and (3) that the causes of the incapacity, abuse, neglect or refusal cannot or will not be remedied.

In re Adoption of C.P.D., 324 A.3d 11, 26 (Pa.Super. 2024) (cleaned up).

Mother argues that her testimony at the termination hearing proved she

was addressing her mental health issues by completing an intensive outpatient

program, attending weekly individual therapy sessions, receiving support from

her church, and replacing her medication, which had unwanted side effects,

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with a more holistic approach, including natural intake of Vitamin D. See

Mother’s brief at 11-12. She emphasizes that she had consistently treated

with Mercy for therapy throughout 2025, which demonstrated substantial

progress on addressing CYF’s mental health concerns. Id. at 12-13. Finally,

Mother highlights her stable employment and housing throughout J.B.’s

dependency. Id. at 12.

The orphans’ court, however, found that Mother had not remedied the

mental health issues that had caused J.B. to be without care, explaining its

reasoning thusly:

At the time [J.B.] became active with CYF, Mother’s mental health instability constituted the main reason for [J.B.]’s removal from her care and subsequent dependency adjudication. Since that time, the evidence demonstrated that Mother’s mental health condition, specifically the repeated diagnoses of schizophrenia and related disorders, is chronic, longstanding, and includes repeated episodes of psychosis. Further, Mother has demonstrated a persistent refusal to accept the diagnoses that cause her condition, and similarly, refuses to accept the recommended treatment, which would be anti-psychotic medication. The record supports the court’s observation that when Mother has taken the prescribed anti-psychotic medication she improves, and when she stops, the improvement does not last. Dr. Pepe testified that a parent who has schizophrenia can be a successful parent, but, in order to do so the parent must accept the diagnosis and adhere to treatment recommendations. Mother has done neither. Based on these facts, clear and convincing evidence exists that Mother’s mental health diagnosis and failure to adhere to treatment leaves her unable to care for Child. Further, given Mother’s history and her recent decision to discontinue all medication, it is reasonable for the court to conclude that her incapacity cannot or will not be remedied.

Orphans’ Court Opinion, 9/10/25, at 4-5 (cleaned up).

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The court’s findings are amply supported by the record. While Mother’s

recent progress in keeping a consistent mental healthcare provider is

commendable, it cannot overcome the fact that she has refused to comply

with her medication regimen or engaged in voluntary treatment for the

diagnosis that most impacts her ability to parent, i.e., schizophrenia.

Unfortunately, this has resulted in repeated inpatient admissions for acute

episodes of psychosis, notwithstanding her engagement in other therapy at

Mercy. Hence, we find no error in the court’s conclusion that Mother cannot

or will not remedy the mental health issues that have caused approximately

three three-year-old J.B. to be without parental care since his birth.

Having found statutory support for termination, we now assess

§ 2511(b), which requires the orphans’ court to “give primary consideration

to the developmental, physical and emotional needs and welfare of the child.”

23 Pa.C.S. § 2511(b). We note that “the determination of the child’s particular

developmental, physical, and emotional needs and welfare must be made on

a case-by-case basis,” with an eye towards “each child’s specific needs.”

Interest of K.T., 296 A.3d 1085, 1105-06 (Pa. 2023) (cleaned up).

This inquiry must factor in the bond between the parent and the child.

See In re E.M., 620 A.2d 481, 485 (Pa. 1993). Our Supreme Court has

explained, however, that “only a necessary and beneficial” parental bond

should be maintained. Interest of K.T., 296 A.3d at 1009. A bond is

considered necessary and beneficial if its severance would cause extreme

emotional consequences or significant, irreparable harm. Id. at 1009-10. The

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extent, however, of the “bond-effect analysis necessarily depends on the

circumstances of the particular case.” In re Adoption of J.M., 991 A.2d 321,

324 (Pa.Super. 2010) (cleaned up). It is “within the discretion of the orphans’

court to prioritize the safety and security” of children “over their bonds with

their parents[.]” Interest of M.E., 283 A.3d 820, 839 (Pa.Super. 2022)

(citations omitted). Courts should also consider “whether the children are in

a pre-adoptive home and whether they have a bond with their foster parents.”

Interest of K.T., 296 A.3d at 1106 (cleaned up). Finally, we note that a

child’s “emotional needs and welfare include intangibles, such as love,

comfort, security, and stability.” Id. (cleaned up).

Mother contends that the court erred in finding that termination best

served J.B.’s needs and welfare because although the lack of visits for an

extended period of time had resulted in no bond between Mother and J.B.,

“there was similarly no bond between any other caregiver.” Mother’s brief at

17. Rather, she avers that there is an inherent “beneficial relationship” that

exists between a child and his natural parent, and therefore termination was

improper. Id.

As noted by the orphans’ court, any underdeveloped relationship J.B.

may have with his pre-adoptive foster parents at the time of the July

termination hearing was because he had to be relocated to that family “after

the first day of the termination hearing” due to Mother “sending threatening

text messages to [the prior] foster parents, whose identity was to be

confidential[.]” Orphans’ Court Opinion, 9/10/25, at 6 n.15. More

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importantly, the court found that because no bond existed between J.B. and

Mother, terminating her parental rights would not cause him “severe

emotional consequences. Instead, [he] is in a positive placement with his new

pre[-]adoptive foster parents with whom he had spent time before being

placed in their care.” Id. at 7 (footnote omitted). The court observed that

the foster parents were meeting his needs, he had adjusted well to the

relocation, and “ha[d] made progress with the specialized services he has

received while in their care.” Id. The court concluded that J.B.’s “placement

with foster parents clearly serves [his] needs and welfare and he deserves the

permanency that termination of Mother’s parental rights will provide.” Id. at

7-8.

Upon review, we find record support for the court’s findings and discern

no abuse of discretion in the court’s analysis. J.B. has thrived in his prior

placements, and has continued to do so with his present pre-adoptive foster

parents. Contrarily, J.B. has never been in Mother’s care during the entire

nearly three years of his life at this point, and has not had any contact with

Mother since December 21, 2023. Plainly, no bond exists between Mother and

J.B. Thus, the orphans’ court did not err in concluding that terminating

Mother’s parental rights so that J.B. could finally achieve permanency would

best serve his “developmental, physical and emotional needs and welfare[.]”

23 Pa.C.S. § 2511(b).

Accordingly, we affirm the order terminating Mother’s parental rights.

Order affirmed.

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DATE: 02/10/2026

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