IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 16-1337

Filed October 12, 2016

IN THE INTEREST OF M.W., B.W., and S.W.,

Minor children,

C.W., Father,

Appellant.

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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Union County, Monty W. Franklin, 

District Associate Judge.

A father appeals the termination of his parental rights to his children. 

AFFIRMED.

Kevin E. Hobbs of Kevin Hobbs, Attorney at Law, West Des Moines, for 

appellant father.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kathrine S. Miller-Todd, Assistant 

Attorney General, for appellee State.

Diana L. Rolands of Rolands Law Office, Osceola, guardian ad litem for 

minor children.

Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Vaitheswaran and McDonald, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Judge.

A father appeals the termination of his parental rights to his children, born 

in 2011, 2012, and 2014. He contends (1) the record lacks clear and convincing 

evidence to support the grounds for termination cited by the district court, (2) the 

State failed to make reasonable efforts toward reunification, and (3) termination 

was not in the children’s best interests. We will address all three arguments 

together.

The district court terminated the parents’ rights pursuant to several 

statutory provisions. We may affirm if we find clear and convincing evidence to 

support any of the cited grounds. See In re S.R., 600 N.W.2d 63, 64 (Iowa Ct. 

App. 1999). One of those grounds was Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(e) (2015), 

which requires proof that a child has been adjudicated in need of assistance, the 

child has been removed from the parents’ physical custody for at least six 

consecutive months, and the parents have not maintained significant and 

meaningful contact with the child during that period and have made no 

reasonable efforts to resume care of the child despite being given the opportunity 

to do so.

Our de novo review of the record reveals the following pertinent facts. 

The children were removed from the parents’ care after they abandoned them 

and failed to treat one of the children’s medical needs. This was the second 

removal for the oldest child. In 2012, the State had filed a child-in-need-ofassistance petition based on the parents’ substance abuse. The parents 

cooperated with reunification services and the child was returned to their 

custody.
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The parents were less cooperative during the second child-in-need-ofassistance proceeding. The department arranged for a variety of reunification 

services. The father attended a post-removal conference as well as another 

family meeting and exercised “some supervised visitation” with the children at the 

outset, but, according to a department of human services child protective worker, 

he had no visits with the children in the nine months preceding the termination 

hearing. For four of those months the department was unaware of the father’s 

whereabouts. 

Less than two months before the termination hearing, the father was 

arrested for driving while barred. A department employee met with him at the jail,

and the father agreed to contact the department and service provider after his 

release. The father failed to follow up with the department. He scheduled an 

appointment with the service provider but did not attend. 

By the time of the termination hearing, the oldest child had been out of his 

parents’ care for twenty-four of fifty-nine months; the middle child for thirteen of 

forty-two months; and the youngest child for thirteen of twenty-five months. The 

father did little to foster the bond he once shared with them.

We conclude the father failed to maintain significant and meaningful 

contact with the children. See Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(e)(3) (defining “significant 

and meaningful contact,” in part, as “the affirmative assumption by the parents of 

the duties encompassed by the role of being a parent,” including “continued 

interest in the child, . . . a genuine effort to maintain communication with the 

child,” and an effort to “establish and maintain a place of importance in the child’s 

life”). We further conclude the department satisfied its obligation to make 
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reasonable efforts towards reunification. See In re C.B., 611 N.W.2d 489, 493 

(Iowa 2000). Finally, we conclude termination was in the children’s best 

interests. See In re P.L., 778 N.W.2d 33, 37 (Iowa 2010).

AFFIRMED.