Peo in Interest of JLB

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: February 5, 2026
• Docket: 25CA1805
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

25CA1805 Peo in Interest of JLB 02-05-2026

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA1805 City and County of Denver Juvenile Court No. 24JV30211 Honorable Laurie A. Clark, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of J.L.B., a Child,

and Concerning J.M.B.,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division II Opinion by JUDGE SULLIVAN Fox and Kuhn, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced February 5, 2026

Miko Brown, City Attorney, Amy J. Packer, Assistant City Attorney, Denver, Colorado, for Appellee

Josi McCauley, Guardian Ad Litem

Beth Padilla, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Durango, Colorado, for Appellant ¶1 J.M.B. (father) appeals the judgment terminating his parent-

child legal relationship with J.L.B. (the child). We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 In March 2024, Denver Human Services (the Department) filed

a petition in dependency or neglect, alleging that mother had given

birth to a substance-exposed child. At that time, father was

incarcerated in the county jail awaiting extradition to Mississippi.

The Department assumed temporary custody of the child and

placed her in foster care.

¶3 Father appeared for the first time by phone from Mississippi at

a June 2024, hearing, and he requested genetic testing to establish

parentage. After his release from custody in July 2024, father

returned to Colorado but didn’t complete genetic testing, so his

mother eventually submitted a genetic sample instead. In February

2025, the juvenile court declared father the child’s legal parent.

¶4 About a month later, father appeared in court for only the

second time and admitted to the allegations in the petition. The

juvenile court adjudicated the child dependent or neglected, and it

adopted a treatment plan for father that required him to (1) comply

1 with and resolve his criminal cases and (2) develop a relationship

with the child.

¶5 In July 2025, the Department moved to terminate father’s

parental rights, and the juvenile court later held an evidentiary

hearing. At the hearing, the Department presented evidence that

father hadn’t visited the child since September 2024, hadn’t had

contact with the Department since April 2025, and had active

warrants in Colorado and Mississippi. After hearing the evidence,

the court terminated the parent-child legal relationship between

father and the child in a detailed written order.

II. Colorado’s Indian Child Welfare Act

¶6 Father asserts that the juvenile court erred when it didn’t

order the Department to investigate information that the child had

“Indian heritage,” as required by Colorado’s Indian Child Welfare

2 Act (ICWA), section 19-1-126(3), C.R.S. 2024.1 We discern no

reversible error.

¶7 In a dependency or neglect proceeding in Colorado, a juvenile

court must inquire of the parties whether they know or have reason

to know that a child is an “Indian child.” § 19-1-126(1)(a)(I)(A).

“[M]ere assertions of a child’s Indian heritage . . . , without more,

are not enough to give a juvenile court ‘reason to know’ that the

child is an Indian child.” People in Interest of E.A.M. v. D.R.M., 2022

CO 42, ¶ 66. But a general assertion of Indian heritage triggers the

due diligence requirements in section 19-1-126(3). H.J.B. v. People

in Interest of A-J.A.B., 2023 CO 48, ¶ 5. Section 19-1-126(3)

requires the court to direct a department to “exercise due diligence

in gathering additional information that would assist the court in

1 The General Assembly repealed section 19-1-126 in 2025, see Ch.

338, sec. 1, § 19-1-126, 2025 Colo. Sess. Laws 1779-81, and then replaced it with a more detailed statute, see id. at sec. 2, §§ 19-1.2- 101 to -132, 2025 Colo. Sess. Laws at 1781-1815. The relevant language in former section 19-1-126(3) now appears in section 19- 1.2-107(4)(a), C.R.S. 2025. We cite the 2024 statute because that was the version in effect when father’s attorney first reported Indian heritage, although we would reach the same conclusion under the 2025 statute.

3 determining whether there is reason to know that the child is an

Indian child.”

¶8 At father’s first appearance in June 2024, the juvenile court

didn’t directly ask him whether he knew or had reason to know that

the child was an Indian child. Instead, the court inquired of

father’s attorney, who told the court that he thought father had

“possible Native American heritage on his paternal side.” The

attorney said that he would “get what information” he could and

provide it to the Department and the court. The court didn’t order

the Department to exercise due diligence under section 19-1-126(3).

¶9 Nothing in the record indicates that father’s counsel provided

any additional information, and father didn’t appear in court again

until the adjudicatory hearing in March 2025. At that hearing, the

juvenile court asked father directly whether he had any Indian

heritage. Father responded, “No.” After the dispositional hearing a

month later, the court found that father had no Indian heritage and

that ICWA didn’t apply. The court made the same findings when it

terminated father’s parental rights.

¶ 10 On appeal, father contends that the juvenile court should have

directed the Department to investigate his attorney’s claim that he

4 had Indian heritage. True, section 19-1-126(3) requires the court to

direct the Department to exercise due diligence when it “receives

information that the child may have Indian heritage.” But because

father subsequently told the court that he didn’t have any such

heritage, we discern no basis to return the matter to the juvenile

court for additional investigation. Cf. People in Interest of S.B., 2020

COA 5, ¶ 22 (“[W]hen grandfather later clarified that he was

enrolled in a federally unrecognized tribe, further notice wasn’t

required and the [court’s] previous errors were harmless.”),

overruled in part on other grounds by E.A.M., 2022 CO 42. We

therefore reject father’s assertion.

III. Termination of Parental Rights

¶ 11 Father argues that the juvenile court erred by terminating his

parental rights because (1) the Department didn’t make reasonable

efforts to rehabilitate him and reunify him with the child and (2) he

needed additional time to comply with his treatment plan. We

disagree.

A. Termination Criteria and Standard of Review

¶ 12 A juvenile court may terminate parental rights if it finds, by

clear and convincing evidence, that (1) the child has been

5 adjudicated dependent or neglected; (2) the parent hasn’t

reasonably complied with an appropriate treatment plan or the plan

hasn’t been successful; (3) the parent is unfit; and (4) the parent’s

conduct or condition is unlikely to change within a reasonable time.

§ 19-3-604(1)(c), C.R.S. 2025.

¶ 13 Whether a juvenile court properly terminated parental rights

presents a mixed question of law and fact because it involves

application of the termination statute to evidentiary facts. People in

Interest of A.M. v. T.M., 2021 CO 14, ¶ 15. We review the court’s

factual findings for clear error, but we review de novo its legal

conclusions based on those facts. People in Interest of S.R.N.J-S.,

2020 COA 12, ¶ 10. The credibility of the witnesses; sufficiency,

probative value, and weight of the evidence; and the inferences and

conclusions drawn from the evidence are within the juvenile court’s

discretion. People in Interest of A.J.L., 243 P.3d 244, 249-50 (Colo.

2010).

B. Reasonable Efforts

¶ 14 In determining fitness under section 19-3-604(1)(c), the

juvenile court must consider whether the county department of

human services made reasonable efforts to rehabilitate the parent

6 and reunite the family. §§ 19-1-103(114), 19-3-208, 19-3-604(2)(h),

C.R.S. 2025. “Reasonable efforts” is defined as the “exercise of

diligence and care” to reunify parents with their children, and a

department’s reasonable efforts obligation is satisfied if it provides

services in accordance with section 19-3-208. § 19-1-103(114).

¶ 15 When determined “necessary and appropriate,” a department

must provide (1) screening, assessments, and individual case plans;

(2) home-based family and crisis counseling; (3) information and

referral services; (4) family time; and (5) placement services.

§ 19-3-208(2)(b). The juvenile court should consider whether the

services provided were appropriate to support the parent’s

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

App. 2011), by “considering the totality of the circumstances and

accounting for all services and resources provided to a parent to

ensure the completion of the entire treatment plan,” People in

Interest of My.K.M. v. V.K.L., 2022 CO 35, ¶ 33.

¶ 16 The record supports the juvenile court’s finding that the

Department made reasonable efforts to rehabilitate father and

reunify him with the child. Recall that father’s treatment plan

required that he (1) comply with his criminal cases and (2) establish

7 a relationship with the child. Because father didn’t need any

specific services to comply with the first component, the

Department needed only to provide father with services to foster a

relationship between him and the child. The evidence shows that

• the Department referred father to a family time provider

in July 2024, and visits began in August 2024;

• father sporadically attended visits, stopped attending in

September 2024, and was discharged by the provider in

October 2024;

• the Department couldn’t make another referral after the

discharge because the caseworkers couldn’t reach father;

and

• the current caseworker continued to reach out to father

through the only contact information she had for him —

an email address — but father never responded to her.

¶ 17 Father doesn’t assert that Department failed to provide him

with adequate family time or any other specific services necessary

to complete his treatment plan. Instead, he contends, for two

reasons, that the Department needed to make additional efforts to

satisfy its reasonable efforts obligation.

8 ¶ 18 First, father contends that the Department improperly delayed

establishing visits between the child and R.M., who lived in

Mississippi and is the mother of father’s other child. But father

doesn’t direct us to any authority suggesting that a department fails

to make reasonable efforts when it doesn’t provide adequate visits

between a child and someone other than the parent. And even if

the reasonable efforts obligation required the Department to

arrange visits between R.M. and the child, we still discern no basis

to reverse. The Department offered visits to R.M. because it hoped

that she would pass a home study and be able to receive the child

into her home, but Mississippi ultimately denied placement. Given

this record, father doesn’t explain how starting visits with R.M.

sooner would have changed the case’s outcome. We therefore reject

his argument.

¶ 19 Second, father maintains that, to satisfy the reasonable efforts

standard, the caseworker needed to provide him with updates about

the case and the child in her monthly emails. Notably, father

doesn’t dispute that the Department made reasonable efforts to

attempt to locate and contact him throughout the case. He

contends only that the caseworker didn’t provide him with updates

9 about the child during those contacts. But father provides no

authority for his position that the reasonable efforts standard

requires a particular type of communication at specified intervals

from a caseworker. In fact, he concedes that section 19-3-208

doesn’t demand such efforts. We therefore discern no basis to

reverse the juvenile court’s decision.

C. More Time to Comply

¶ 20 To determine whether the juvenile court erred by declining to

give father more time to work on his treatment plan, we consider

whether father could have become fit within a reasonable time. In

determining whether the parent can become fit within a reasonable

time, a court may consider whether any change has occurred

during the proceeding, the parent’s social history, and the chronic

or long-term nature of the parent’s conduct or condition. People in

Interest of D.L.C., 70 P.3d 584, 588-89 (Colo. App. 2003). The

determination of a reasonable period is fact-specific and varies from

case to case. People in Interest of S.Z.S., 2022 COA 133, ¶ 25. But

a reasonable time isn’t an indefinite time, and it must be

determined by considering the child’s physical, mental, and

10 emotional conditions and needs. People in Interest of A.J., 143 P.3d

1143, 1152 (Colo. App. 2006).

¶ 21 The record supports the juvenile court’s finding that father

couldn’t become fit within a reasonable time. As noted, the record

shows that father didn’t consistently participate in family time and

hadn’t had any contact with the child in almost a year. He didn’t

otherwise participate in the case or cooperate with the Department.

The caseworker opined that father was unfit based on his “lack of

engagement in the case” and that he couldn’t become fit in a

reasonable time given his limited contact with the child and the

“substantial amount of time” it would take to “create [a] bond” with

the child.

¶ 22 Father doesn’t dispute this record or direct us to any evidence

suggesting that he could have become fit if given more time to

comply. Rather, he asserts that “his goal for the case was not

reunification” so long as R.M. raised the child. But once it became

clear that R.M. couldn’t serve as a placement, father argues, the

court should have “given him an opportunity to engage in [the

treatment] plan.” As described above, the record shows that father

had an opportunity to engage but chose not to participate in any

11 aspect of the case. Under these circumstances, the juvenile court

couldn’t simply disregard the child’s needs and continue the case

indefinitely to see whether father might participate. See S.Z.S., ¶ 24

(“Where a parent has made little to no progress on a treatment plan,

the juvenile court need not give the parent additional time to

comply.”). We therefore discern no basis to disturb the court’s

judgment.

IV. Disposition

¶ 23 We affirm the judgment.

JUDGE FOX and JUDGE KUHN concur.