Opinion ID: 2556516
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Extent of Reasonable Efforts

Text: The thrust of Ms. B.'s argument is that the Department does not satisfy its reasonable efforts requirement if it merely refers a parent to services necessary for reunification, when that parent, through no fault of her own[,] cannot avail herself of those services[.] The Department and counsel for Shirley counter, arguing that the reasonableness of the Department's efforts must be considered in light of the limitations on its and other related governmental resources. The Court of Special Appeals opinion in In re James G., 178 Md.App. 543, 943 A.2d 53 (2008), tracked, in great detail, the evolution of the reasonable efforts requirement. As Judge Hollander explained, the `reasonable efforts' requirement . . . has its genesis in federal law, with the enactment of the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (AACWA)[.] Id. at 572, 943 A.2d at 69. The AACWA was designed with a focus on family preservation and reunification. [It] sought to end the stagnation [of] keeping children in foster homes by requiring states to make reasonable efforts to reunite families. Id. at 573, 943 A.2d at 70 ( quoting Kathleen S. Bean, Reasonable Efforts: What State Courts Think, 36 U. Tol. L.Rev. 321, 325 (2005)). Under the AACWA, reasonable efforts quite simply had to do with the quality of preservation services given before foster care placement and the quality of reunification services provided during foster care placement. Will L. Crossley, Defining Reasonable Efforts: Demystifying the State's Burden under Federal Child Protection Legislation, 12 B.U. Pub. Int. L.J. 259, 272 (2003). Although the AACWA initially fulfilled its goal of decreasing the number of children left to languish in foster care drift, the reverse began to occur in the late 1980s. See Bean, 36 U. Tol. L.Rev. at 325-26. Many believed the reasonable efforts requirement was to blame. Id. at 326. The criticism included charges that children were still in foster homes too long. The charge was that they lingered now, not because of agency inaction, but because agencies were engaged in excessive efforts to repair hopelessly dysfunctional families. Instead of the permanency intended by the federal reasonable efforts clause, impermanency resulted. Perhaps of even greater concern, however, was the perception that children were being reunited with parents when it was not safe to do so in the name of reasonable efforts. Id. (internal quotations omitted). In response, Congress amended the AACWA by enacting the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997. See Bean, 36 U. Tol. L.Rev. at 325-26. While it did not eliminate the reasonable efforts mandate, Congress did narrow it by making the health and safety of the child the paramount consideration when determining reasonable efforts to be made . . . and in making such reasonable efforts. Id. Despite the problematic history of the reasonable efforts mandate, the term itself remains undefined under federal law. See James G., 178 Md.App. at 578, 943 A.2d at 73. In its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking with regard to ASFA, the United States Department of Health and Human Services provided the following explanation for its rejection of a clear definition: During our consultation with the field, some recommended that we define reasonable efforts in implementing the ASFA. We do not intend to define reasonable efforts. To do so would be a direct contradiction of the intent of the law. The statute requires that reasonable efforts determinations be made on a case-by-case basis. We think any regulatory definition would either limit the courts' ability to make determinations on a case-by-case basis or be so broad as to be ineffective. In the absence of a definition, courts may entertain actions such as the following in determining whether reasonable efforts were made:     Was the service plan customized to the individual needs of the family or was it a standard package of services?  Did the agency provide services to ameliorate factors present in the child or parent, i.e., physical, emotional, or psychological, that would inhibit a parent's ability to maintain the child safely at home?  Do limitations exist with respect to service availability, including transportation issues? If so, what efforts did the agency undertake to overcome these obstacles?    . . . Typically, State child welfare agencies and the courts encounter cases in which it is appropriate to make reasonable efforts to prevent a child's removal from home or to reunify the family. Quite frequently, though, States are faced with circumstances in which it is unclear how much effort is reasonable. At the initial stage of and throughout its involvement with a family, the child welfare agency assesses the family's needs and circumstances. The State agency should make reasonable efforts to prevent the child's removal from home or to reunify the family commensurate with the assessment. 63 F.R. 50058, 50073 (1998) (emphasis added). The relevant Maryland statutes contain language nearly identical to the reasonable efforts provision of ASFA, [and the General Assembly has] done little else legislatively to define reasonable efforts. Crossley, 12 B.U. Pub. Int'l L.J. at 295. Thus, it is not surprising that the Court of Special Appeals considered Maryland's definition of reasonable efforts to be amorphous[,] without any bright line rule to apply to the `reasonable efforts' determination[, meaning that] each case must be decided based on its unique circumstances. Shirley, 191 Md.App. at 710-11, 993 A.2d at 694. The Courts & Judicial Proceedings Article defines reasonable efforts as efforts that are reasonably likely to achieve the objectives set forth in § 3-801(b)(1) and (2) of this subtitle. CJP § 3-801(v). The objective pertinent to this case would be to finalize the permanency plan in effect for the child[] and meet the needs of the child, including the child's health, education, safety, and preparation for independence]. CJP § 3-816.1(b)(2). Even though reasonable efforts must be determined on a case-by-case basis, this Court has provided guideposts for future cases. In the seminal case, Rashawn, we explained that poverty, of itself, can never justify the termination of parental rights. . . . Nor will homelessness, alone, or physical, mental or emotional disability, alone, justify such termination. . . . [W]hat the statute appropriately looks to is whether the parent is, or within a reasonable time will be, able to care for the child in a way that does not endanger the child's welfare. [The court's] primary consideration must be given to the safety and health of the child. Rashawn, 402 Md. at 499-500, 937 A.2d at 190-91. In this vein, we directed the Department to actively pursue services aimed at reunification: The statute does not permit the State to leave parents in need adrift and then take away their children. The court is required to consider the timeliness, nature, and extent of the services offered by DSS or other support agencies . . . and whether additional services would be likely to bring about a sufficient and lasting parental adjustment that would allow the child to be returned to the parent. Implicit in that requirement is that a reasonable level of those services, designed to address both the root causes and the effect of the problem, must be offered[.] Id. at 500, 937 A.2d at 191. Yet, we also recognized that there are limits to what the Department is required to do: The State is not obliged to find employment for the parent, to find and pay for permanent and suitable housing for the family, to bring the parent out of poverty, or to cure or ameliorate any disability that prevents the parent from being able to care for the child. It must provide reasonable assistance in helping the parent to achieve those goals, but its duty to protect the health and safety of the children is not lessened and cannot be cast aside if the parent, despite that assistance, remains unable or unwilling to provide appropriate care. The State is not required to allow children to live . . . in temporary shelters. . . or to grow up in permanent chaos and instability, bouncing from one foster home to another until they reach eighteen and are pushed onto the streets as adults, because their parents, even with reasonable assistance from DSS, continue to exhibit an inability or unwillingness to provide minimally acceptable shelter, sustenance, and support for them. Id. at 500-01, 937 A.2d at 191 (emphasis added). Here, perhaps more so than any of our previous CINA cases, the record demonstrates that economic considerations have shaped the boundaries of the Department's reasonable efforts. As the juvenile court recognized, the Department was at the mercy of agencies that lack[ed] necessary funding to provide services that the court deemed potentially helpful to Ms. B. In situations such as this, the State's ability to provide adequate services is constrained by its staff and dollar limitations[;] therefore, the State must put forth reasonable efforts given its available staff and financial resources to maintain the legal bond between parent and child. In re Jonathan T., 148 N.H. 296, 808 A.2d 82, 88 (2002) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). See also COMAR 07.02.11.14(A) (2011) (The Department shall provide, [t]o the extent that funds and other resources are available, a range of services that will facilitate or maintain successful reunification of the child[.]) (emphasis added). Accordingly, reunification efforts must be judged within the context of the resources available to the agency, with the agency receiving the benefit of the doubt when resources are limited. Bean, 36 U. Tol. L.Rev. at 365. See also In re Giorgianna H., 205 S.W.3d 508, 519 (Tenn.App.2006) (The factors that courts use to determine the reasonableness of the Department's efforts include . . . the resources available to the Department[.]). In short, a juvenile court must be cognizant of the availability of services when determining whether the Department's efforts have been reasonable. See In the Interest of C.S., 516 N.W.2d 851, 858 (Iowa 1994) (To allow the juvenile court to order placements without regard for funding limitations would circumvent the appropriations process of the legislature and the budgetary process of the Department.). Indeed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services instructs courts to consider whether limitations exist with respect to service availability when examining reasonableness. 63 F.R. 50073. To be sure, the Department must make a good faith attempt at connecting a parent with services necessary for reunification. In In re Adoption/Guardianship Nos. J9610436 & J9711031, 368 Md. 666, 682, 796 A.2d 778, 787 (2002) ( Case 36 ), we reversed a juvenile court's order terminating the parental rights of a mentally-disabled father because the Department could not show that it had offered any specialized services designed to be particularly helpful to a parent with such cognitive limitations. For example, the Department failed to utilize services from the Arc and the DDA, even though it was relying in its drive toward termination on the fact that in the opinion of its [social] workers, petitioner was disabled by reason of mental impairment. [8] Id. at 682-83, 796 A.2d at 787-88. This was particularly unsettling because the services [were readily] available and the father had proven to be willing and eager to work toward reunification. Id. at 682, 700, 796 A.2d at 787, 798. In sharp contrast, as we detail later, those services were not available here, despite extensive efforts by the Department to obtain them. Similarly, in James G., the juvenile court erred by changing a child's permanency plan from reunification to relative placement when the Department made only a single referral in an effort to combat the parental obstacles to reunification. James, 178 Md.App. at 599, 943 A.2d at 85. A Department case worker had testified that the only impediments to reuniting father with son was the father's lack of stable employment and lack of housing, and the Department claimed that it could not provide housing assistance until the father was employed. Id. Yet, the only effort the Department made to address [the father's] unemployment was a single referral to an organization that could not address [the father's] employment needs. Id. The juvenile court concluded that [c]ertainly, more could have been done to help [the father] get a job, which would in turn have helped with getting housing[,] but it agreed with the Department that a change in the permanency plan was both practicable and realistic. Id. at 564, 943 A.2d at 65. The Court of Special Appeals, on the other hand, considered the Department's efforts to be shameful and unacceptable because the fruitlessness of this one referral created a domino effect that led to the decision not to reunify parent and child. Id. at 601, 943 A.2d at 86. It held that the Department had not made reasonable efforts toward reunification and, accordingly, reversed the juvenile court's order changing the son's permanency plan. Id. at 606, 943 A.2d at 89. An examination of these two cases provides some glaring distinctions from the one at hand. First, in both Case 36 and James there was no history of child abuse or willful neglect, see Case 36, 368 Md. at 688, 796 A.2d at 791 and James, 178 Md. App. at 565, 943 A.2d at 65. Here, there are well-documented instances of physical and sexual abuse, as well as extreme neglect. Moreover, the number of services readily available to the Department here was severely limited by a general dearth of financial resources. This is in contrast with the circumstances in Case 36, where we held that the Department had at its disposition better suited services for petitioner than those which it had offered, 368 Md. at 701, 796 A.2d at 798, and in James, where the juvenile court found that Department could have done more, 178 Md.App. at 564, 943 A.2d at 65. Here, the juvenile court understood that the Department was in a bind when it came to providing appropriate services for Ms. B., and that it was inappropriate for the court to order the Department to finance services that are within the purview of other agencies[.] Despite these financial obstacles, however, the Department's efforts to reunify Ms. B. with her children, including its assistance with her daily living, were legion. As enumerated in the court's Order of Commitment, these efforts included: a. referring Mother to the DDA and DORS; b. assisting in Mother's preparation of the application for services and its submissions and achieving placement of Mother on a waiting list (second tier); c. attempting to determine when Mother might be able to receive services (however, efforts did not meet with success in determining when the services might be available); d. determining when Mother might be able to be placed with Melwood, only to find that, although an assessment was done, Melwood has lost the assessment and Melwood is no longer accepting clients of DORS; e. contacting the Community Connections Agency to determine if other funds were available for the services that were not readily accessible through DDA and DORS and funds that might have been available after the December review in this case had been exhausted by January, 2009; f. funding and obtaining a necessary neuropsychological evaluation of Mother in an effort to provide an evaluation that would have been provided by other sources; g. obtaining a family clinical interview with regard to [Shirley] and her siblings; h. discussing with Mother her medical issues; i. assisting Mother in reactivating her medical assistance; j. arranging for and transporting Mother for medical appointments, including a gynecological examination, as well as an examination to address issues of high blood pressure; k. transporting Mother to educational meeting and appointments affecting [Shirley] and assisting Mother in understanding what was occurring and assisting her in questioning; l. transporting Mother to visits with [Shirley] and her siblings; m. providing for management of [Shirley's] medication; n. attending meetings concerning and following the progress of [Shirley's] Individualized Education Program; [and] o. providing necessary therapy and referring [Shirley] to Pathfinders for specialized therapy to help her work through trauma issues[.] This is an extensive list, and it is clear that the Department did not sit on its hands and wait for the necessary services to materialize. Indeed, the crux of Ms. B.'s argument is not that the Department, itself, could have done more, but that she was unable to avail herself of the requisite services through no fault of her own. She attempts to analogize this situation to the revocation of probation where the failure to comply was not the fault of the probationer. This Court has held that ordinarily probation may not be revoked if the probationer proves that his failure to comply was not willful but rather resulted from factors beyond his control and through no fault of his own. Bailey v. State, 327 Md. 689, 695, 612 A.2d 288, 291 (1992) (emphasis omitted). Yet, as the Department correctly explains, the purpose of a CINA case is to protect the child, not to punish the parent. Certainly, Ms. B.'s situation is a tragic one, with which we sympathize, but our sentiment cannot distract us from the relevant statutory criteria. See FL § 5-525(f) (In developing a permanency plan for a child . . ., the local department shall give primary consideration to the best interests of the child[.]). In this instance, we must balance Ms. B.'s right to raise her children against the State's right to protect children, who cannot protect themselves, from abuse and neglect. Rashawn, 402 Md. at 497, 937 A.2d at 189. As Shirley described, Ms. B. repeatedly invited the violence that wreaked havoc on their lives back into her home, in the form of Mr. T.: [O]ur dad . . . hurt our mom really bad. . . but then our mom would let him come back again and hurt us all over again . . . including her. Even the Department's removal of the Children from her care did not prevent Ms. B. from continuously placing them in harm's way, as Gimperling later discovered when Mr. T. informed her that, during the Children's home visits, he had been living with the Ms. B the whole time. Here, we must be particularly cautious not to presumptively favor reunification because of the severe neglect and emotional trauma suffered by the Children in Ms. B.'s home. See In re Yve S., 373 Md. at 570, 819 A.2d at 1041 ( quoting In re Mark M., 365 Md. 687, 705-06, 782 A.2d 332, 342-43 (2001)) (That which will best promote the child's welfare becomes particularly consequential where the interests of a child are in jeopardy, as is often the case in situations involving sexual, physical, or emotional abuse by a parent.); see also FL § 9-101(b) (Unless the court specifically finds that there is no likelihood of further child abuse or neglect by [the parent], the court shall deny custody or visitation rights to that party[.]). We agree with the juvenile court that the Department's efforts were diligent and made in good faith. As the CSA observed, the Department did not throw up its hands in defeat when presented with multiple monetary barriers: [The Department] referred Ms. B. to parenting classes with the Family Tree. It arranged, and paid for, individual mental health therapy at Community Counseling and Mentoring, with therapist Debbie Austin, to address Ms. B.'s mental health needs and parenting skills. The Department then sought more specific services for Ms. B. due to her cognitive limitations, including referring Ms. B. to DORS, Melwood, and DDA, and helping Ms. B. complete an application for services. When Ms. B. was placed on a waiting list for DDA because adequate funding was not available, the Department attempted, albeit without success, to locate an alternative source of funds through the Community Connections Agency. It provided Ms. B. with information about ARC, which offered a support group for parents with developmental disabilities. Additionally, the Department paid for an individual neuropsychological evaluation for Ms. B. It cannot be said here . . . that the Department did not seek specialized services to assist Ms. B. Shirley, 191 Md.App. at 715-16, 993 A.2d at 697. We do not see how the Department could have acted any differently to attempt to address Ms. B.'s needs, and counsel for Ms. B. does not enlighten us. [9] As discussed earlier, many authorities, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, direct courts to consider the reasonableness of the Department's efforts in light of the availability of services. Here, services were withheld from Ms. B. due to forces outside the Department's control, but not for its lack of trying. Thus, we agree with the CSA that the Department made reasonable efforts to reunify Ms. B. with her children, and we hold that the juvenile court's finding was not clearly erroneous.