IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 22-1443

Filed November 17, 2022

IN THE INTEREST OF A.C. and A.F.C.,

Minor Children,

T.D., Mother,

Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Kimberly Ayotte, 

District Associate Judge.

A mother appeals the termination of her parental rights. AFFIRMED.

Austin Jungblut of Parrish Kruidenier Dunn Gentry Brown Bergmann & 

Messamer L.L.P., Des Moines, for appellant mother.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Ellen Ramsey-Kacena, Assistant 

Attorney General, for appellee State.

Paul White of Des Moines Juvenile Public Defender, Des Moines, attorney 

and guardian ad litem for minor children.

Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Ahlers and Chicchelly, JJ.
2

AHLERS, Judge.

About four years of services were provided to a family to try to correct 

problems in the home. The problems included the mother allowing a sex offender 

unrestricted access to the children, domestic violence (including multiple incidents 

involving knives or firearms), child abuse, housing instability, drug use, and drug 

dealing. When the services did not succeed, the juvenile court terminated the 

parental rights of the parents of five-year-old A.F.C. and three-year-old A.C.1 Only 

the mother appeals.

We conduct de novo review of decisions terminating parental rights. In re 

Z.K., 973 N.W.2d 27, 32 (Iowa 2022). Our review follows a three-step process of 

determining if statutory grounds for termination have been established, if

termination is in the children’s best interests, and whether any permissive 

exceptions should be applied to preclude termination. In re A.B., 957 N.W.2d 280, 

294 (Iowa 2021). We do not address any steps a parent does not challenge. In 

re P.L., 778 N.W.2d 33, 40 (Iowa 2010). Then we address any additional claims 

raised by a parent. In re S.D., No. 22-1141, 2022 WL 3906757, at *1 (Iowa Ct. 

App. Aug. 31, 2022).

The juvenile court terminated the mother’s rights to the older child pursuant 

to Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(f) (2022) and to the younger child pursuant to 

section 232.116(1)(h). The mother only challenges the statutory grounds for 

terminating her rights to the older child. Yet, in doing so, she points to no part of 

section 232.116(1)(f) that the State failed to prove. Section 232.116(1)(f) permits 

1 The children have the same mother. The father of A.C. is unknown. The juvenile 

court terminated the rights of A.F.C.’s father and all unknown fathers of A.C.
3

termination upon proof that (1) the child is four years of age or older; (2) the child 

has been adjudicated as a child in need of assistance; (3) the child has been 

removed from the physical custody of the child’s parent for the last twelve 

consecutive months and any trial period at home has been less than thirty days; 

and (4) the child cannot be returned to the custody of the child’s parent at the time 

of the termination hearing. In re D.W., 791 N.W.2d 703, 707 (Iowa 2010). 

On our de novo review, we find clear and convincing evidence of all four 

elements for termination. As noted by the juvenile court, the mother has not 

engaged in services to address her history of physical abuse of the children or her 

history of domestic violence. See In re J.R., No. 17-0556, 2017 WL 2684405, at 

*3 (Iowa Ct. App. June 21, 2017) (“The threat to children posed by domestic 

violence in their home may serve as the basis for terminating parental rights.”); see

also In re A.R.C. III, No. 13-0786, 2013 WL 3458222, at *5–6 (Iowa Ct. App. July 

10, 2013) (considering unresolved domestic-violence issues as a basis for 

terminating parental rights). She was dishonest to the court and service providers 

regarding her relationship with an abusive sex offender. See In re M.W., 876 

N.W.2d 212, 223 (Iowa 2016) (finding continued dysfunctional relationships as a 

basis for finding a child cannot be returned to a parent’s custody). She has not 

demonstrated the ability to maintain stable housing, and she has not shown 

progress in addressing her substance-abuse issues. See In re A.B., 815 N.W.2d 

764, 776 (Iowa 2012) (“We have long recognized that an unresolved, severe, and 

chronic drug addiction can render a parent unfit to raise children.”); In re D.M., 

No. 18-0086, 2018 WL 1433104, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 21, 2018) (collecting 

cases finding a child cannot be returned to a parent when the parent does not have 
4

stable housing or employment). The juvenile court correctly found statutory 

grounds for terminating the mother’s parental rights to the older child.2

Within her argument challenging the termination of her rights to the older 

child, the mother makes repeated reference to an additional period of 

rehabilitation. An additional period to work toward reunification is not relevant to 

whether statutory grounds for termination exist, as the relevant inquiry for 

termination under section 232.116(1)(f) is whether the child can be returned to the 

mother’s custody at the time of the termination hearing, not at some future time. 

See In re A.S., 906 N.W.2d 467, 473 (Iowa 2018) (interpreting “at the present time” 

to mean “at the time of the termination hearing”). The mother’s argument 

essentially concedes that the older child could not be returned home at the time of 

the hearing and thus concedes the statutory grounds. Nevertheless, we interpret 

the mother’s argument as a separate argument requesting additional time to work 

toward reunification.

If the juvenile court does not terminate a parent’s rights, it can choose any 

permanency option, including giving a parent an additional six months to work 

toward reunification. See Iowa Code § 232.117(5) (permitting the court to enter 

an order pursuant to section 232.104 if the court does not terminate parental 

rights); see also id. § 232.104(2)(b) (establishing a permanency option of 

continuing placement for an additional six months to give a parent the opportunity

to change so that removal will no longer be necessary). However, to choose this 

2 The mother’s petition on appeal does not address our typical steps two and 

three—whether termination is in the children’s best interests and permissive 

exceptions to termination. As a result, we do not reach these issues.
5

option, the court must be able to “enumerate the specific factors, conditions, or 

expected behavioral changes which comprise the basis for the determination that 

the need for removal of the child from the child’s home will no longer exist at the 

end of the additional six-month period.” Id. § 232.104(2)(b). On our de novo 

review, we cannot enumerate any such factors, conditions, or expected behavioral 

changes. We agree with these observations by the juvenile court:

[The mother] has asked for additional time to work towards 

reunification. [The mother] has received years of services without 

those services yielding meaningful and lasting change. By her own 

admission, [the mother] delayed in participating in services until after 

the [court of appeals] affirmed the termination of her parental rights 

towards [two older children whom are not the subject of this 

proceeding]. [The two children involved in this proceeding] have 

remained in limbo throughout the life of this case. They have been 

removed in excess of a year, and it only now that [the mother] 

appears ready to make changes. It is not in these children’s best 

interests to continue to suspend the crucial days of childhood while 

the parents experiment with ways to face up to their own problems.

We reject the mother’s request for additional time to work toward reunification.

As to the younger child, the mother makes only a conditional challenge to 

the termination of her rights. She asserts that, if we reverse the termination of her 

rights to the older child, we should also reverse the termination of her rights to the 

younger child in order to keep the siblings together. The condition for the mother’s 

arguments has not been met, as we are not reversing the termination of her rights 

to the older child. As a result, we also reject her conditional challenge to the 

termination of her rights to the younger child.

We affirm the juvenile court’s ruling terminating the mother’s rights to both 

children.

AFFIRMED.