IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 19-1384

Filed December 18, 2019

IN THE INTEREST OF M.T.,

Minor Child,

M.T., Father,

Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Deborah Farmer 

Minot, District Associate Judge.

A father appeals the juvenile court order waiving the requirement that the 

Iowa Department of Human Services make reasonable efforts to return his child to 

his care. AFFIRMED.

Sara Strain Linder of Bray & Klockau, P.L.C., Iowa City, for appellant father.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Mary A. Triick, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee State.

Anthony Haughton of Linn County Advocate, Inc., Cedar Rapids, attorney 

and guardian ad litem for minor child.

Considered by Doyle, P.J., and Tabor and Schumacher, JJ.
2

DOYLE, Presiding Judge.

A father appeals the juvenile court order waiving the requirement that the 

Iowa Department of Human Services (DHS) make reasonable efforts to return his 

child to his care. He contends the State failed to prove that aggravated 

circumstances exist to warrant waiving the reasonable-efforts requirement. We 

review his claim de novo. See In re J.S., 846 N.W.2d 36, 40 (Iowa 2014).

The child was born in 2016. Within six months, the juvenile court removed 

the child from the parents’ care because of the child’s exposure to the parents’ 

domestic violence. The parties stipulated to the child’s adjudication as a child in 

need of assistance (CINA). 

In August 2018, after almost two years, the juvenile court authorized a trial 

home placement. The parents did not fare well during this period, failing to follow 

the expectations of the trial home placement plan and to maintain contact with their 

Family Safety, Risk, and Permanency (FSRP) service provider. But the DHS failed 

to inform the court of these failures, and the juvenile court returned the child to the 

parents’ care in November 2018. The court discovered the truth of the situation in 

March 2019. It scheduled a modification hearing and informed the parents it would 

consider removing the child if they did not take the child to protective daycare daily 

or failed to meet with the FSRP service provide regularly. 

A domestic dispute between the parents in May 2019 led the State to file

criminal charges against the father for domestic abuse assault, second offense. 

The juvenile court entered a temporary order removing the child from the parents’ 

care before holding a hearing to consider the child’s removal, modification of prior 

dispositional orders, and waiver of reasonable efforts. In its August 2019 order, 
3

the juvenile court placed the child in foster care and waived the requirement for 

making reasonable efforts to reunify the family. 

When a child is removed from the home, the DHS must “make every 

reasonable effort to return the child to the child’s home as quickly as possible 

consistent with the best interests of the child.” Iowa Code § 232.102(9) (2019). 

Reasonable efforts are those efforts made to eliminate the need for removal of the 

child or make it possible for the child to return home. Id. § 232.102(12)(a). The 

court may waive the reasonable efforts requirement when aggravated

circumstances exist. See id. § 232.102(14). Here, the court waived reasonable 

efforts under section 232.102(14)(b), which allows the court to waive the 

requirement if the circumstances described in section 232.116(1)(i) apply. 

The father disputes that the circumstances listed in section 232.116(1)(i) 

apply. Of the three circumstances listed under that paragraph, the father only 

challenges the existence of “clear and convincing evidence that the offer or receipt 

of services would not correct the conditions which led to the abuse or neglect of 

the child within a reasonable period of time.” Id. § 232.116(1)(i)(3). In determining 

clear and convincing evidence supports such a finding, the juvenile court noted it 

had already “exercised an extraordinary amount of patience” with the parents in 

the hope that “with sustained support and service, [they] could somehow combine 

resources to build the family they wanted, and to care for the child that they dearly 

loved.” Despite this patience, the court observed that it took the parents “almost 

two full years” to regain custody of the child after the first removal. Given the

parents’ performance during the trial home placement, the court was “convinced 
4

that no amount of additional time and no other or different services would result in 

the successful, safe, and lasting reunification of the child with his parents.” 

We agree with the juvenile court’s assessment that services will not correct 

the conditions that led to the child’s removal within a reasonable time. The CINA 

proceedings began more than three years ago. Although the juvenile court 

returned the child to the parents’ care for a period, it would probably not have done 

so if it had known “the extent of the family’s disengagement with services.” Even 

so, the father is scarcely in a better position to care for the child after three years 

of services than he was at the time of the child’s first removal. 

“[O]ur legislature has established a limited time frame for parents to 

demonstrate their ability to be parents.” In re J.E., 723 N.W.2d 793, 800 (Iowa 

2006). Once the grounds for termination have been proved, time is of the essence. 

See In re A.C., 415 N.W.2d 609, 614 (Iowa 1987) (“It is unnecessary to take from 

the children’s future any more than is demanded by statute.”). As we have often 

said, children are not equipped with pause buttons. See In re R.J., 436 N.W.2d 

630, 636 (Iowa 1989) (noting that once the time for reunification set by the 

legislature has expired, “patience on behalf of the parent can quickly translate into 

intolerable hardship for the children”). For more than three years, the DHS has 

made reasonable efforts to return the child to the father’s care. Three years is 

more than what is reasonable. Under the circumstances before us, we see no 

reason to extend that time. Because aggravated circumstances exist to warrant 

waiving the reasonable-efforts requirement, we affirm.

AFFIRMED.