Peo in Interest of CG

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: October 30, 2025
• Docket: 25CA0852
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25CA0852 Peo in Interest of CG 10-30-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA0852 Jefferson County District Court No. 24JV30191 Honorable Lindsay VanGilder, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of C.G. and C.W., Children,

and Concerning C.W.,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division III Opinion by JUDGE KUHN Dunn and Lipinsky, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced October 30, 2025

Kimberly Sorrells, County Attorney, Claire M. Czajkowski, Assistant County Attorney, Golden, Colorado, for Appellee

Sheena Knight, Guardian Ad Litem

Andrew A. Gargano, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant ¶1 C.W. (mother) appeals the judgment adjudicating C.G. and

C.W. (the children) dependent or neglected and the dispositional

order, which required her to comply with a treatment plan. We

affirm.

I. Background

¶2 The Jefferson County Division of Children, Youth and Families

filed a petition in dependency or neglect that raised concerns about

mother’s substance dependence and mental health. Mother

requested an adjudicatory jury trial. However, she failed to appear

on the trial date. Instead, mother’s counsel asked the juvenile

court to enter mother’s no-fault admission. That same day, the

court received a written admission signed by mother and her

counsel. Based on the signed admission, the court adjudicated the

children dependent or neglected.

¶3 About a month later, the court held a contested dispositional

hearing. After taking testimony from the Division’s caseworker,

mother, and father, the court entered a dispositional order

including a treatment plan for mother.

1 II. Analysis

¶4 Mother contends that the juvenile court erred by (1) accepting

her admission to the petition without ensuring she understood the

consequences; (2) adopting an inappropriate treatment plan; and

(3) admitting a family services plan as an exhibit at the

dispositional hearing. We consider and reject these contentions in

turn.

A. Adjudication

¶5 Mother first contends that the juvenile court erred by

accepting her written admission because the court failed to provide

a comprehensive advisement or ensure that she understood the

consequences of the admission.

¶6 Mother concedes that these issues are unpreserved. Still, she

urges us to address her claims under the miscarriage of justice

exception to the preservation requirement. See People in Interest of

E.S., 2021 COA 79, ¶ 14.

¶7 We may consider an unpreserved issue in a dependency or

neglect case for the first time on appeal if a juvenile court error

involves a miscarriage of justice. See People in Interest of M.B.,

2020 COA 13, ¶ 21 (“[G]iven the constitutional nature of parental

2 rights, we will recognize a miscarriage of justice exception for review

of unpreserved errors.”). The miscarriage of justice exception has a

high bar and narrow scope. See id. at ¶¶ 23-24. We recognize the

exception only in “rare cases, involving unusual or special

circumstances, . . . to prevent an unequivocal and manifest

injustice.” People in Interest of E.R.S., 2019 COA 40, ¶ 38.

¶8 Mother claims that “the manifest injustice [in her case] is the

[Division]’s intrusion into the parent-child relationships.” But the

Division’s intrusion is not an unusual or special circumstance.

Every adjudication results in “intrusive protective or corrective state

intervention into the familial relationship.” People in Interest of

A.M., 786 P.2d 476, 479 (Colo. App. 1989). Mother does not assert,

and we cannot discern, any unusual or special circumstances

surrounding her written admission or the later adjudication of the

children in this case. To the contrary, mother concedes that she

and her counsel signed the written advisement indicating her

understanding of the petition and a broad array of rights. She then

asserts the court failed to ensure that her understanding was

correct. However, she points us to nothing in the record supporting

that supposition.

3 ¶9 We therefore decline to address the issues concerning mother’s

admission and the later adjudication of the children as dependent

or neglected. See People in Interest of T.E.R., 2013 COA 73, ¶ 30

(generally, issues not raised in the trial court will not be considered

on appeal).

¶ 10 Mother also claims, without developing any factual or legal

support, that she received ineffective assistance of counsel in

connection with her admission. Because mother does not develop

this argument, we will not consider it. People in Interest of S.Z.S.,

2022 COA 105, ¶ 29.

B. Dispositional Order

¶ 11 Mother next contends that the juvenile court erred by adopting

a treatment plan that was not appropriate and by admitting the

family service plan as an exhibit at the dispositional hearing. We

disagree.

1. Relevant Law and Standard of Review

¶ 12 When a child is adjudicated dependent or neglected, the

juvenile court must fashion a treatment plan for the parent. People

in Interest of K.B., 2016 COA 21, ¶ 11; see also § 19-3-508(1)(e)(I),

C.R.S. 2025 (providing that, unless the proposed disposition of a

4 dependency and neglect action is termination of the parent-child

legal relationship, the court “shall approve an appropriate treatment

plan”). The purpose of a treatment plan is to preserve the

parent-child legal relationship by assisting the parent in overcoming

the problems that required intervention into the family. People in

Interest of L.M., 2018 COA 57M, ¶ 25. Therefore, an appropriate

treatment plan is one that is approved by the court, relates to the

child’s needs, and provides treatment objectives that are reasonably

calculated to render the parent fit to provide adequate parenting to

the child within a reasonable time. § 19-1-103(12), C.R.S. 2025;

K.B., ¶ 13.

¶ 13 An appropriate treatment plan must “address the safety

concerns identified during the assessment of the family.” K.B.,

¶ 14. This is true even when the adjudication of the children was

not necessarily predicated upon those particular concerns. People

in Interest of C.L.S., 934 P.2d 851, 856 (Colo. App. 1996) (the

specific ground on which a child is found to be dependent and

neglected does “not restrict the juvenile court’s discretion to

formulate a treatment plan in the best interests of the child”); see

also People in Interest of L.S., 2023 CO 3M, ¶ 35 (holding that the

5 court need only find by a preponderance of the evidence that a

component is appropriate to include in the treatment plan).

¶ 14 While the focus of a plan is to address the child’s needs and

any identified safety concerns, the plan’s requirements must also be

realistic given the existing facts. See People in Interest of B.J.D.,

626 P.2d 727, 730 (Colo. App. 1981). Such facts necessarily

include a parent’s individual circumstances and ability to access

treatment services; when the requirements of a treatment plan are

not realistic given the existing facts, “[n]on-compliance [is] virtually

assured and lack of success [is] a foregone conclusion.” Id.

¶ 15 We review a treatment plan adopted by the juvenile court for

an abuse of discretion. People in Interest of M.W., 2022 COA 72,

¶ 32. A court abuses its discretion when its actions are manifestly

arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair, or based on an erroneous

understanding or application of the law. Id. at ¶ 12.

2. Appropriate Treatment Plan

¶ 16 Mother claims that the treatment plan was not appropriate

because (1) she was not capable of frequent substance testing in

Jefferson County; (2) it did not require the Division to provide her

with transportation assistance; (3) it required her to repeat

6 assessments that she had already completed; and (4) it improperly

prohibited her legal use of marijuana. We address each claim in

a. Reasonable Travel Requirements

¶ 17 Mother contends that the evidence presented at the

dispositional hearing made clear that she was not capable of

traveling to Jefferson County eight to ten times a month to submit

mouth swabs.

¶ 18 During the assessment, mother moved from Jefferson County

to Larimer County. She relied on public transportation to travel to

family time and court hearings in Jefferson County. Mother

testified that it was difficult to get to monitoring appointments given

the transportation issues. She said that she would have preferred

four to six tests per month.

¶ 19 The juvenile court considered the request but declined to

reduce the proposed testing frequency. It found that the required

frequency of mouth swabs was necessary to prevent undetected

substance use and to obtain a baseline for mother’s sobriety. It

noted that if mother maintained a period of demonstrated sobriety

and compliance, it would consider ordering less frequent testing.

7 ¶ 20 We can’t say on this record that the juvenile court abused its

discretion by denying mother’s request for less frequent testing.

While she testified that traveling by public transportation was

difficult, she did not indicate that the difficulty was

insurmountable. Moreover, the court didn’t merely disregard

mother’s concern. Instead, it grounded its decision in preventing

undetected substance use.

¶ 21 Regardless, the treatment plan itself only required mother to

submit to substance monitoring. It didn’t require her to travel the

fifty miles between her home at the time of the dispositional hearing

and Jefferson County to complete that monitoring. To the contrary,

the treatment plan didn’t specify a location for the monitoring.

Further, the Division is required to make available the services

deemed necessary and appropriate by the treatment plan in a

manner appropriate to support the parent’s completion of the

treatment plan. People in Interest of S.N-V., 300 P.3d 911, 915

(Colo. App. 2011); § 19-3-208(2)(d)(I), C.R.S. 2025; see § 19-3-217,

C.R.S. 2025. The record reflects no reason for the court to assume,

at the time it adopted the treatment plan, that the Division would

8 fail to make mouth swabs available in the city where mother resides

if it had to do so.

b. Specific Transportation Assistance Requirements

¶ 22 Similarly, we disagree with mother’s broad assertion that the

treatment plan should have required specific transportation

assistance. As indicated above, there was no indication that

mother could only receive substance abuse monitoring sixty miles

from her home. And she testified that she participated in many of

her treatment services virtually. Likewise, she testified that she

participated in family time in the city where she resided.

Accordingly, nothing in this record indicates that the treatment

plan was not appropriate when the court adopted it. See People in

Interest of A.N-B., 2019 COA 46, ¶ 26 (“[T]he Division’s later efforts

to implement the plan have no bearing on whether or not the plan

was appropriate.”). If anything, her contention that “comprehensive

transportation assistance was necessary in this case” is a question

better suited to the juvenile court’s ongoing reasonable efforts

analysis, not our consideration of the appropriateness of her

treatment plan.

9 c. Support for Substance Abuse Treatment

¶ 23 Mother asserts that the juvenile court erred by adopting

requirements for substance abuse treatment, a relapse prevention

plan, and a recovery plan “without any basis in the evidence.” We

¶ 24 At the dispositional hearing, mother testified that she

completed an evaluation and was “already doing certain things.”

She testified that she objected to developing a relapse prevention

plan in particular because “the micro-managing . . . is also

unnecessary.”

¶ 25 The court found, with record support, that there were ongoing

concerns about mother’s substance dependence that rendered the

substance dependence objectives reasonable and appropriate. The

court also found that mother only submitted one urinalysis test,

which was positive for methamphetamine, marijuana, and alcohol.

The court modified several treatment plan objectives at mother’s

request, including removing the requirement that mother attend

community sobriety meetings. But the court further found that

“the primary concern is that mother undergo a substance

evaluation and comply with the recommendations.” And while the

10 court acknowledged mother’s testimony that she had previously

completed an evaluation, it also noted the caseworker’s testimony

that mother’s provider denied having any record of an evaluation.

The court found that mother needed to complete another evaluation

unless mother’s provider furnished the evaluation to the Division.

¶ 26 Given the conflicting testimony about what treatment, if any,

mother had engaged in and about mother’s positive urine screen for

illegal substances, we discern no abuse of the court’s discretion in

requiring mother to engage in substance abuse treatment and

develop a relapse prevention plan and a recovery plan. See People

in Interest of A.J.L., 243 P.3d 244, 256 (Colo. 2010) (when the

evidence conflicts or depends on credibility determinations, a

reviewing court may not reweigh the evidence or substitute its

judgment for that of the juvenile court merely because there might

be evidence supporting a different result).

d. Marijuana Use

¶ 27 Mother contends that the juvenile court improperly prohibited

her legal use of marijuana. Mother asserts that she objected to

abstaining from marijuana.

11 ¶ 28 But the record shows that mother made a different request to

the juvenile court. At the dispositional hearing, mother objected “in

part” to abstaining and testified that she treated physical and

mental health concerns with marijuana. Mother testified that, in a

prior safety plan, the Division permitted her to use marijuana “given

the medical professional’s referral.” Based on mother’s request, the

court modified the treatment plan and ordered that marijuana “be

considered as prescription medication” and that mother could

provide a prescription for marijuana, along with prescriptions for

any other medications, to the Division. We therefore discern no

basis for reversal. See People v. Ujaama, 2012 COA 36, ¶ 37; see

also M.B., ¶ 14 (“[L]ike other civil actions, [in] dependency and

neglect proceedings . . . , generally appellate courts review only

issues presented to and ruled on by the lower court.”).

3. Admission of the Family Service Plan was not Preserved

¶ 29 Mother contends that the family service plan admitted as an

exhibit at the dispositional hearing did not meet the requirements of

section 19-1-107(2) and (2.5), C.R.S. 2025, because the family

service plan (1) contained extraneous information about mother and

12 (2) lacked the required “list of services available to families that are

specific to the needs of the child and the child’s family and that are

available in the community where the family resides.”

§ 19-1-107(2.5). However, this contention is not properly before us

because mother did not raise these objections in the juvenile court.

Instead, mother conceded that the family service plan was the “kind

of report” permitted by section 19-1-107 and objected only to the

time that would be required to cross-examine the caseworker who

wrote the report. An issue is unpreserved for review when, among

other things, “no objection or request was made in the trial court”

or “an objection or request was made in the trial court, but on

grounds different from those raised on appeal or on unspecific

grounds which would not have alerted the trial court to the issue of

which the [party] now seeks review.” Ujaama, ¶ 37 (citations

omitted); see M.B., ¶ 14. Because mother raised a different

objection in the juvenile court than the one now raised, we will not

address her contentions about the family service plan.

III. Disposition

¶ 30 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE DUNN and JUDGE LIPINSKY concur.