Opinion ID: 2582508
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Make Reasonable Efforts Tailored to C.W.'s Learning Disability

Text: C.W. argues that the state violated its duty under the CINA statute and the ADA to make reasonable efforts, tailored to his learning disability, to remedy his alcohol abuse problem and enable him to reunite with J.S. Alaska Statute 47.10.088 allows a court to terminate parental rights for purposes of freeing a child for adoption or other permanent placement. In order to terminate parental rights under the statute, a court must first find, by clear and convincing evidence, that (1) the child is a child in need of aid under AS 47.10.011, [6] and (2) the parent has not remedied the conduct or conditions that placed the child at risk. [7] Alaska Statute 47.10.086(a) requires that DHSS make reasonable efforts to provide family support services to the parent and child with the aim of preventing out-of-home placement. [8] But even assuming AS 47.10.086(a) invariably requires DHSS to make reasonable efforts to reunite the biological family when the parent has abandoned the child, [9] it does not require DHSS to make greater efforts than it made in this case to locate C.W. after he had left town and lost contact with his son and those others involved with the CINA proceeding. Title II of the ADA prohibits states from discriminating on the basis of disability in the provision of services, programs, or activities. [10] The Code of Federal Regulations and the federal case law uniformly suggest that the reunification services provided by DHSS are services within the contemplation of Title II. [11] Therefore, if the state had a duty under the statute to provide support services to remedy C.W.'s alcohol abuse, we assume for discussion purposes that it also had the duty under the ADA to provide these services in a manner that reasonably accommodated his alleged disability. But we need not decide here whether DHSS made reasonable efforts under the ADA to remedy C.W.'s alcohol abuse, because the order terminating C.W.'s parental rights rests independently on the superior court's well-supported findings that C.W. had abandoned his son, and that DHSS had made reasonable efforts under the circumstances to locate C.W. and to include him in the CINA proceeding. The superior court found that J.S. was a child in need of aid under AS 47.10.011(1) [12] due to C.W.'s failure to maintain regular visits for a period of three years and the fact that C.W. had not called, written letters, sent pictures, or participated in any kind of contact that would let the child know that his father was still around and that he still cares. The superior court concluded that in light of the three-year abandonment and C.W.'s failure to inform DHSS of his whereabouts, DHSS's efforts to provide C.W. services were reasonable. The record supports the finding that DHSS's contact efforts were reasonable. After C.W. left Anchorage and his son in 1996, social workers continued to communicate with C.W.'s mother (whose address C.W. had used for mail and communication with DHSS) knowing that C.W. had contact with his mother and that through her, he would get the message that social workers wanted to speak with him about his case plan. Although it was not until the case goal had changed from reunification to termination that DHSS checked criminal records in what would ultimately be a successful effort to locate C.W. in jail, [13] C.W. admitted that he knew all along how to contact the caseworkers and his son if he so desired. C.W. abandoned his child for more than three years, leaving DHSS no information concerning his whereabouts. And by the time C.W. reappeared, he had been separated from J.S. for so long that the court could reasonably conclude that no further efforts to reunite C.W. and J.S. could reasonably be expected to have remedied the harm that the abandonment had caused. Thus, as the state met its statutory obligations, AS 47.10.086 does not provide grounds for challenging the termination of C.W.'s parental rights. Nor does the ADA provide such grounds. C.W. has never contended that his alleged disability affected the circumstances surrounding his abandonment. He advanced his ADA claim only with respect to DHSS's failure to make reasonable efforts to address his alcohol abuse problem. Because the superior court's findings concerning abandonment including its finding of reasonable efforts provided an independent basis for terminating C.W.'s parental rights, and because C.W.'s disability claim had no logical bearing on the abandonment findings, the court did not err in terminating C.W.'s parental rights on that ground, even assuming that DHSS's efforts to address his alcohol problem were unreasonable under the ADA and arguably precluded terminating his rights on the ground that his drinking made him an unfit parent.