Juvenile Officer v. E.L.L.

200 S.W.3d 599, 2006 Mo. App. LEXIS 1324
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedSeptember 12, 2006
DocketNos. WD 66571, WD 66572
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 200 S.W.3d 599 (Juvenile Officer v. E.L.L.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Juvenile Officer v. E.L.L., 200 S.W.3d 599, 2006 Mo. App. LEXIS 1324 (Mo. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

ROBERT G. ULRICH, Judge.

E.L.L. appeals from the judgments of the trial court terminating her parental rights to her children, B.A.L. and I.Q.S., pursuant to sections 211.447.4(1) abandonment, 211.447.4(2) abuse and neglect, 211.447.4(3) failure to rectify, and 211.447.4(6)1 unfit parent. She claims that the judgments were not supported by clear, cogent, and convincing evidence. The judgments are affirmed.

Facts

The appellant, E.L.L. (Mother), is the mother of B.A.L., born July 25, 1998, I.Q.S., born June 27, 1999, and K.L., born May 2, 2002. The father of B.A.L. is M.P. The father of I.Q.S. is S.Q.S. The father of K.L. is T.S. The fathers of the children did not appeal the judgments terminating their parental rights. Mother consented to the termination of her parental rights to K.L. and does not appeal from that judgment.

The children were removed from Mother’s custody on August 3, 2003, by Macon County juvenile authorities when she was arrested for DWI and on an outstanding warrant. One-year-old K.L. was in the car with Mother when she was arrested. Kinship placement for the children could not be secured by Children’s Services; consequently, the children were placed in foster care in Macon County. The children remained in foster care for over twenty-eight continuous months as computed on the date of the hearing, December 16, 2005.

[602]*602Mother was charged with a criminal offense and held in the county jail after her arrest. She was released on bond in October 2003. At that time, supervised visits with the children were offered to Mother. On November 18, 2003, Mother was again arrested and held in the county jail for violating conditions of her bond. She remained in jail until January 7, 2004. Upon her release, she was sent to McCambridge Center in Columbia for a thirty-day residential substance abuse treatment program. This treatment was a Level 1 residential treatment consisting of classes, group therapy and individual therapy, and overnight stays. Mother completed the thirty-day residential program and was then ordered to continue outpatient treatment at Jewel Oxford House. Mother, however, quit the program after ten days and was unsuccessfully discharged by the McCambridge Center on March 18, 2004.

Mother lived at various addresses in Columbia during 2004 although her children were in Macon County. She participated in only two supervised visits with B.A.L. and I.Q.S. and missed several scheduled visits citing lack of transportation. Eventually, the children’s counselors recommended that contact between Mother and children cease because the children’s negative behavior increased after Mother visited them. In June 2004, Children’s Services ceased all contact, physical and by phone, between Mother and the children. In July 2004, Mother was ordered to pay child support in the amount of $90 per month per child.

In August 2004, Mother’s criminal case was disposed of when she was sentenced to 120-day treatment at the correctional facility in Vandalia. Mother completed the Level 2 treatment program at Vandalia in December 2004 and was placed on probation. She was then ordered to attend aftercare treatment at McCambridge Center from January to March 2005, but she was again unsuccessfully discharged by the Center for nonattendance and noncompliance.

A permanency hearing was held before the court in January 2005, and a dual track of reunification and termination of parental rights was ordered. Supervised telephone contact was allowed between Mother and the children beginning in February. In March, at the post permanency review hearing, the order was changed to termination of parental rights/adoption as a goal.

The petitions for termination of parental rights were filed on May 16, 2005. In July, the court ordered that phone calls from Mother to the children had to be consistent or they would be discontinued. After that order, Mother made the calls consistently every week although the children’s foster parents testified that the children did not want to talk to Mother and had more behavior problems after the calls. Mother attended a Level 3 treatment program at the Phoenix House in Columbia. At the hearing on the petitions in December 2005, Mother acknowledged that she chose treatment at the Phoenix House rather than at McCambridge Center because it was “easier and mellower.” Although Children’s Services received a certificate of completion from the Phoenix House indicating that Mother had completed the program, it never received specific information regarding what its service entailed and what was required of Mother and, therefore, would not acknowledge that Mother successfully completed treatment.

Additional evidence from Children’s Services revealed that Mother brought the children a box of clothes in 2004. She made a single child support payment of $75 while the children were in foster care and, at the time of the hearing, owed child support equivalent to $1,500 per child. [603]*603She never sent the children cards or birthday or Christmas presents. Family support team meetings were held monthly from the time the children entered foster care until the time of the hearing. Written service agreements were completed at each meeting. Of the twenty-five meetings held, Mother attended five in person and five by telephone. A caseworker from the Division testified that the children have no emotional ties to Mother, Mother had made little progress in complying with the written service agreements, Mother’s parental rights should be terminated, and if Mother’s rights were terminated, the children would be adopted into the home in which they were currently placed. The children’s counselors and the guardian ad litem also recommended that Mother’s parental rights be terminated.

At the hearing, Mother claimed that since May of 2005, her life had become much more stable and she had secured adequate housing for the children. She tested negative for drugs in several urine analyses performed in 2005. Mother’s probation officer reported her stable, and the primary concern was Mother’s underemployment. Mother was living with her flaneé in a three bedroom trailer, which was inspected by her Boone County worker and found to be adequate. She met her flaneé at Narcotics Anonymous and acknowledged that he is on probation and has a drug problem. Mother’s mother and two sisters also were living at the home, but Mother claimed they would be leaving in January. Mother was self-employed cleaning two houses. She admitted that her income was not adequate to provide for the children but stated that her flaneé works full time and that his income is adequate. She testified that if she does not obtain more houses to clean, she would get a full time job to support the children. Mother acknowledged that before May 2005, she was chemically dependent, was unable to support her children and did not provide for them financially, and made little progress on the written service agreements.

The trial court entered it judgments on January 5, 2006, terminating Mother’s parental rights to B.A.L. and I.Q.S. based on four grounds: abandonment, section 211.447.4(1); abuse and neglect, section 211.447.4(2); failure to rectify, section 211.447.4(3); and unfit parent, section 211.447.4(6). This appeal by Mother followed.

Standard of Review

In terminating parental rights, the trial court must find by clear, cogent, and convincing evidence that one or more grounds for termination exists under subsections 2, 3, or 4 of section 211.447 and that termination is in the best interests of the child.

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Related

In Re IQS
200 S.W.3d 599 (Missouri Court of Appeals, 2006)

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Bluebook (online)
200 S.W.3d 599, 2006 Mo. App. LEXIS 1324, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/juvenile-officer-v-ell-moctapp-2006.