Opinion ID: 2317131
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Anne Marie

Text: The trial justice granted the termination of Milner's parental rights to her daughter, Anne Marie, stating that it is abundantly clear that no intervention or service will enable Ms. Milner to parent effectively a child with such special and particularized needs as Anne Marie [who] presents with many behavioral issues, particularly aggression and sexualized behaviors [and] requires an extremely high degree of care, nurturance, consistency and stability. Further, the trial justice held that Milner's personality disorder, her cognitive limitations, her less than absolute compliance with the case plans, her denials that she is in need of mental health treatment or parenting assistance and her lack of insight, indicate that she will never, and certainly not within a reasonable period, be able to attain the skills necessary to protect and care for Anne Marie. The trial justice opined that a successful reunification of Anne Marie and her mother would require complete cooperation and total commitment by Ms. Milner to engage in a wide array of mental health, parenting and other services    [and] would undoubtedly entail monumental efforts by both DCYF and Ms. Milner. The trial justice concluded that reunification within a reasonable period would be impossible because Ms. Milner is either unwilling or incapable of making that commitment. Accordingly, the court found that DCYF had shown by clear and convincing evidence that its efforts to reunite Anne Marie with her mother were reasonable. Milner contends that the trial justice erred in finding that DCYF made reasonable efforts to reunite her with Anne Marie. She relies upon our decision in In re Christopher B., in which we reaffirmed our previous unequivocal statement 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 Christopher B., 823 A.2d at 311 (quoting In re Joseph S., 788 A.2d 475, 477 (R.I.2002)). For the court to conclude that a parent would not benefit from services never attempted would be to adopt a rule that mentally impaired parents are per se incapable of parenting   . Id. at 312. Milner contends that while reunification may have required extraordinary efforts, DCYF utterly failed to provide the appropriate services. She maintains that without these services having been provided, the trial justice's finding that reasonable efforts had been made amounted to a holding that Milner's mental health and cognitive deficiencies rendered her per se incapable of parenting a child with post-traumatic stress disorder and contravened our holding in In re Christopher B. On the other hand, DCYF argues that the trial justice did not hold that Milner was per se incapable of parenting Anne Marie; rather, his decision to terminate Milner's parental rights was based on many additional facts. DCYF refers to the trial justice's finding that: Ms. Milner has not been fully compliant with the case plan. Although she completed the BVCAP parenting program and the assessment at Community Counseling Center, she has failed to sign all necessary releases in a timely manner, she did not attend all the sessions with Dr. Parsons and has on several occasions denied that she is in need of either mental health counseling or parenting assistance. The state argues that in light of these findings, further services were not appropriate. Therefore, it contends that the trial justice did not err in holding that DCYF had made reasonable efforts at reuniting Milner with Anne Marie. Because this Court is evenly divided with regard to Milner's appeal, the judgment terminating her parental rights to Anne Marie is affirmed. See Kells v. Town of Lincoln, 874 A.2d 204, 215 (R.I. 2005); Soares v. Ann & Hope of Rhode Island, Inc., 637 A.2d 339, 353 (R.I.1994).