Opinion ID: 2391967
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Continued services of an education advocate for Christopher and Kayla.

Text: Christopher and Kayla should remain in placement until these services can be put into place. The situation should then be reassessed six months from the inception of those services. Significantly, the trial justice found that DCYF made no new referrals based on these recommendations over the next year, other than for marriage counseling. Thus, despite two assessments recommending specialized referrals for Mary Ann in light of her cognitive impairment and parenting difficulties, the only services DCYF offered to Mary Ann after her evaluations were marriage counseling and continued participation in the visitation program at the Children's Museum. But neither of those referrals was designed to address Mary Ann's mental disability nor to assist her in developing basic parenting skills. In the trial justice's written decision, he observed, [u]nless we are prepared to say that a mentally retarded individual is by definition incapable of parenting  which is clearly not the case  [Mary Ann] is entitled to receive appropriate services. As the trial justice noted, DCYF created five different case plans for Mary Ann, all of which it supposedly aimed at reunification. But the only services that DCYF offered or that Mary Ann received as a consequence of these different plans consisted, in the following order, of: (1) a referral to the Blackstone Valley Community Action Program in August of 1998 for parenting education, (which Mary Ann says that DCYF never told her about and DCYF could not recall telling her about); (2) a referral to the Families Together Program at the Children's Museum for biweekly and then weekly supervised visitation, which Mary Ann attended, beginning in January 1999; (3) a referral to Dr. Parsons for a psychological evaluation, completed on January 30, 1999; (4) a referral to Pauline Santos at the Spurwink RI for a parenting evaluation, completed on March 23, 1999; and (5) a referral to Robin Boyajian at Spurwink for marriage counseling and couples therapy, originally made in April of 1999, which Mary Ann attended. Thus, as this time line illustrates, the only additional referrals DCYF made in response to the two evaluators' recommendations was marriagecounseling and couples therapy, which the trial justice found to be incongruous under the circumstances. [8] The trial justice found that DCYF received Dr. Parsons' psychological evaluation in February 1999, and thus was made aware    fully one year prior to the filing of the termination petitions, that [Mary Ann] was mildly retarded and could benefit from specialized parenting classes and counseling utilizing a cognitive behavioral approach as distinguished from insight oriented treatment. In addition, the trial justice noted that DCYF had not argued that the services that Dr. Parsons and Ms. Santos recommended for Mary Ann were unavailable. He also found as a fact that DCYF simply never made any referrals pursuant to the recommendations other than to marriage counseling. After evaluating the services provided by DCYF, the Family Court justice made the following findings: Clearly DCYF did not exert its best efforts to strengthen this family relationship, nor did it offer [Mary Ann] the most appropriate services in light of her limited cognitive functioning. Clearly it should have done much more in the year between the receipt of Dr. Parsons' evaluation and the filing of the termination petition. Yet by the same token there is little or no evidence suggesting that [Mary Ann] has the capacity to become a more effective parent even if all of the recommended services were to be provided to her.    It is the duty of this court in considering a termination petition to consider the interests of the parent, the child and the state. In doing so, the court is mindful of the urgent need of these children for permanency in their lives. Therefore, the court is compelled to conclude that DCYF did make reasonable efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship given the totality of the circumstances. (Emphasis added.) Thus, based on the trial justice's conclusion that little or no evidence suggested Mary Ann was capable of benefiting from the recommended services that DCYF never offered to her, and on his conclusion that termination was in the best interests of the parents, the children, and the state, the trial justice found that he was compelled to conclude DCYF had employed reasonable efforts at reunifying the family. Mary Ann, of course, challenges this conclusion on appeal, arguing that the trial justice improperly based his finding of reasonable efforts on his conclusion that no amount of reasonable efforts to provide her with appropriate services could have benefited Mary Ann to the point at which reunification with her children would be possible. Mary Ann argues that no evidence supports this finding and that even if it were true, it does not excuse DCYF from its statutory duty to employ reasonable efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship, as required by § 15-7-7(b)(1). Mary Ann also argues that, although the services DCYF offered her might be reasonable for a parent of average intelligence, such services were unreasonable for a person such as herself who was incapacitated by a mental deficiency. When alleging a parent's mental illness or deficiency as a basis for terminating parental rights, DCYF bears a statutory burden of demonstrating to the Family Court that it engaged in reasonable efforts to reunify the family. See §§ 15-7-7(a)(2)(i) and (b)(1). We have held previously that when DCYF is required by statute to pursue reasonable efforts before filing for termination, it is required to do so [r]egardless of the unlikelihood for success, In re Joseph S., 788 A.2d at 477  at least when, as here, no expert testimony supports the proposition that, to a reasonable degree of professional certainty, any such efforts would prove to be futile under thecircumstances. We have also held that what constitutes reasonable efforts depends on the totality of the circumstances, including both the particular needs of a cognitively impaired parent and the availability of the suggested services through the child-placement agency. See In re William, Susan, and Joseph, 448 A.2d at 1256. Here, the trial justice found that Mary Ann suffered from a relatively mild form of mental retardation, that Dr. Parsons and Ms. Santos recommended certain available services to strengthen Mary Ann's parental relationship with Christopher and Kayla, and that DCYF failed to refer Mary Ann for any of these available services, other than for marriage counseling. Further, the only other programs DCYF offered to Mary Ann either were never disclosed to her or not designed in any way to address her special parenting needs and cognitive limitations. Nevertheless, instead of denying DCYF's petition because of these findings, the trial justice believed that he was compelled to conclude that DCYF had employed reasonable efforts in this case. Essentially, he found that Mary Ann was beyond hope of improving her parenting skills to the point at which reunification would be possible, and therefore the best interests of the children, the parents, and the state all favored terminating parental rights. The trial justice also commented that he felt compelled to reach such a conclusion in light of the totality of the circumstances, including most predominantly, the best interests of the children and the urgent need of these children for permanency in their lives. Mary Ann, however, received no services designed to overcome her established cognitive impairment. Thus, to hold that she would not benefit from services never attempted would be to adopt a rule that mentally impairedparents are per se incapable of parenting  a holding that even the trial justice said he wished to avoid. [9] See text, supra. In addition, because a finding of reasonable efforts is a prerequisite to a finding of unfitness when such a showing is required by statute, see In re Briana D., 798 A.2d at 415, absent a finding of reasonable efforts, the balance of inquiry does not yet shift to the best interests of the child. See In re Nicole B., 703 A.2d at 615. As a result, the trial justice inappropriately conditioned his finding of reasonable efforts, and thus his determination of unfitness, on the urgent need of [the] children for permanency in their lives. Although we have observed that this is an important consideration in determining the best interests of a child, see In re Briana D., 798 A.2d at 415, such an inquiry is inappropriate before a finding of parental unfitness occurs. See id. (holding that, in considering a petition to terminate parental rights, [t]he first step is, therefore, a finding of parental unfitness.    [T]he next step is to consider the best interest of the child, which will [then] `outweigh all other considerations.'). This Court has provided guidelines for what form of agency conduct constitutes reasonable efforts as defined in § 15-7-7(b)(1). In In re William, Susan, and Joseph, we held that the following standards, adopted from New York law, were helpful in determining whether a child-placement agency such as DCYF has made reasonable efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship: `[D]iligent efforts' shall mean reasonable attempts by an authorized agency to assist, develop and encourage a meaningful relationship between the parent and child, including but not limited to:

(4) informing the parents at appropriate intervals of the child's progress, development and health.' In re William, Susan, and Joseph, 448 A.2d at 1257 n.3 (quoting N.Y. Soc. Serv. Law § 384-b(f) (McKinney 1981)). Because the trial justice found that Mary Ann's mental deficiency was directly related to the situation that led to the children's placement and because her mental health interfered with her ability to parent Christopher and Kayla effectively, we hold that DCYF, in petitioning for a TPR decree on mental-deficiency grounds, was required to demonstrate that it undertook reasonable efforts to address these mental-deficiency issues in the services it offered to this parent. Such a holding is consistent with our previous determination that reasonable efforts to reunify a family must in some way include an offer of services that would be reasonable under the particular circumstances of each given case  taking into account the particular needs of the subject family  including the mental deficiency of a parent. See In re William, Susan, and Joseph, 448 A.2d at 1255 (Efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship whichare reasonable with respect to an average parent are not necessarily reasonable with respect to an intellectually limited person.). Because DCYF made no such showing of reasonable efforts to address Mary Ann's mental impairment in this case and because the trial justice misapplied the standards set forth above, we hold that the trial justice overlooked material evidence and was clearly wrong in his finding that DCYF undertook reasonable efforts under § 15-7-7(a)(2)(i) to reunify Mary Ann and her children. Indeed, we are unable to point to any legally competent evidence to support the trial justice's findings that termination was proper on the grounds of Mary Ann's mental deficiency. Thus, with respect to this particular ground for termination, we sustain Mary Ann's appeal, reverse the trial justice's decision, and vacate the finding of parental unfitness and the TPR decree under this subsection because of DCYF's failure to undertake reasonable efforts to address Mary Ann's mental deficiency and its impact on her parenting skills.