K.J. v. Tuscaloosa County Department of Human Resources

13 So. 3d 971, 2008 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 630, 2008 WL 4445188
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Alabama
DecidedOctober 3, 2008
Docket2070598 and 2070610
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 13 So. 3d 971 (K.J. v. Tuscaloosa County Department of Human Resources) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
K.J. v. Tuscaloosa County Department of Human Resources, 13 So. 3d 971, 2008 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 630, 2008 WL 4445188 (Ala. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinions

THOMAS, Judge.

K.J. (“the mother”) appeals from separate judgments terminating her parental rights to her two sons, three-year-old K.G. and six-year-old J.J.1 We affirm.

The mother has four children. In addition to the sons who are the subject of this appeal, she also has two daughters — L.J., who is 14 years old, and Q.J., who is 16 years old. The mother’s husband, from whom she is separated, is the father of all four children. The family had been the subject of child-abuse-and-neglect complaints for 10 years before the Department of Human Resources (“DHR”) received a report in 2005 alleging that the father had abused Q.J. with an extension cord. Upon investigating that report, police officers found the family’s house to be filthy and infested with roaches. DHR provided the family with protective services, including assistance from an entity referred to in the record as “Family Options” and in-home aides. The mother refused DHR’s offer of aides to help her clean the house, stating that she could do the cleaning herself.

In August 2005, when the youngest child, K.G., was a month old, he was hospitalized as a failure-to-thrive infant. DHR determined that the mother had not understood how to mix KG.’s powdered formula and had been feeding the child mainly water. Upon his release from the hospital on August 29, 2005, K.G. was placed in foster care. The three older children were placed in foster care several days later after DHR caseworkers visited the family’s house and found it to be filthy, roach-infested, and reeking of urine. The caseworkers learned that the father had left the house because it was so dirty and had gone to live with his mother. After the children were placed in foster care, DHR provided the mother with a psychological evaluation, counseling, supervised therapeutic visitation, and parenting-skills training that included instruction on disciplinary techniques, appropriate family interaction, communication, and budgeting.

Dr. April Lane, who has a Ph.D. in counseling, performed a psychological evaluation of the mother. Dr. Lane testified that the mother is in the mild range of mental retardation, with a full-scale I.Q. of 62. She stated that the mother “very clearly loves her children and [is] concerned about them, but she lack[s] understanding of the[ir] special needs.” All four children are special-needs children. Sixteen-year-old Q.J. is mentally handicapped and suffers from oppositional-defiant disorder (“ODD”) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (“ADHD”). Fourteen-year-old L.J. has a learning disability, suffers from depression, and has an adjustment disorder. Six-year-old J.J. is mentally handicapped and has a speech disorder. Three-year-old K.G. is clumsy, falls often, cannot run in a straight line, speaks few words and no sentences, and is not toilet trained.

Dr. Lane gave her opinion that, because of her cognitive deficits, the mother is unable to parent the children independently. Dr. Lane said that with a very good, direct support system, such as someone’s living in her house or nearby to provide constant guidance, the mother would be an able parent. Dr. Lane testified that the mother did not have a reliable support system. The mother had reported to Dr. Lane that her pastor, Daisy Bryant, was her support system, but Dr. Lane expressed doubts about Pastor Bryant’s [973]*973judgment when she learned that Bryant had advised the mother to use corporal punishment to discipline Q.J., who was 14 years old at the time, and to have Q.J. put in a detention facility if the discipline did not work. The mother admitted at trial that she had kicked Q.J. in the eye when she refused to get up and get ready for school.

Jessie Berkley, a social worker and therapist, observed and supervised the mother’s bimonthly visitations with J.J. and K.G. Berkley testified that the visits were chaotic because the mother did not have the capacity to interact effectively with the children. Berkley coached the mother and suggested effective disciplinary techniques. According to Berkley, the mother was cooperative and highly motivated, but she was simply unable to implement what Berkley had tried to teach her. Berkley stated that the boys reacted well when she herself used the disciplinary techniques, but, she said, they paid no attention to their mother’s efforts to discipline them. Berkley concluded that the mother could not safely care for the children without supervision.

DHR referred the mother to three organizations that provide assistance to mentally handicapped individuals: the Betty Woods therapeutic agency, the Helping Hands agency, and Ability Alliance, an “umbrella” agency providing a range of services for the mentally handicapped. The record does not indicate whether the mother took advantage of the services of the Betty Woods or Helping Hands agencies. The mother failed to schedule an appointment with Ability Alliance, even after DHR caseworkers had repeatedly reminded her to do so.

During the two years before the trial of this case, the mother had been employed at several fast-food restaurants, but none of her jobs had lasted very long. The record indicates that she had usually lost jobs because of her failure to understand or follow directions. The mother receives $646 per month in Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) and Social Security benefits. Each of her four children receives $579 per month in SSI benefits. When the children were removed from her home, the mother lost the income from the children’s SSI payments. Consequently, she had been unable pay her rent or to find an affordable housing based on her income alone. At the time of trial, she was living with her mother, her mother’s boyfriend, and her great-aunt in a two-bedroom apartment. DHR offered the mother housing assistance, but, the mother said, when she inquired as to public housing, she was told that she did not earn enough to pay the rent on any of the apartments she had visited. The mother relocated twice during the time that the children were in foster care, but both times the housing was in a dangerous neighborhood that was unsafe for children.

DHR foster-care worker Jennifer Payne testified that, before DHR moved to terminate the mother’s parental rights, she had learned of a group home in Birmingham that might accept the mother and children as residents and assist the mother in parenting the children. In January 2007, Payne discussed with the mother the fact that the group home might be the mother’s last opportunity to regain custody of her sons, but the mother declined to consider the group home because, she said, she did not know anyone in Birmingham and did not want to leave Tuscaloosa, where her family members were.

Following three days of testimony, the juvenile court entered separate judgments on March 7, 2008, terminating the mother’s parental rights to J.J. and K.G. The [974]*974mother timely appealed to this court.2

I.

The mother contends that DHR failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that there was no viable alternative to the termination of her parental rights. Specifically, she claims that, because she testified at the termination hearing that she was willing to reconsider the Birmingham group home that she had previously rejected in January 2007, all viable alternatives to termination had not been exhausted. The mother cites R.P. v. State Department of Human Resources, 937 So.2d 77 (Ala.Civ.App.2006), to support her argument that the group home was a viable alternative.

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Bluebook (online)
13 So. 3d 971, 2008 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 630, 2008 WL 4445188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kj-v-tuscaloosa-county-department-of-human-resources-alacivapp-2008.