Court Opinion

ID: 9740674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:40:11.467966+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:19.639750
License: Public Domain

SACKETT, Judge
(specially concurring).
I concur with the majority that there is clear and convincing evidence supporting the allegations of the State’s petition to terminate this father’s parental rights. Without question, this father has engaged in behavior that has been harmful to his children.
However, I cannot help but recognize the father was still a teenager when the first child was born. He has had a difficult life. The record clearly reflects he loves his children and has made attempts to gain the stability and maturity necessary to parent the children. Unfortunately, he has not been able to do so. He contends he has not been provided adequate services to prevent the need for termination. I agree with the majority that his needs were not ignored. But I also recognize the State, despite the expenditure of considerable resources, has not been able to provide services of a kind that the father was able to utilize to correct his problems. This obviously was in a large part the father’s fault, but when offered services fail to accomplish their intended goals, it is fair to ask why, so that maybe next time the services can be more responsive.
We must continue to assess ways to make services more responsible. There are a large number of children in this state whose parental rights have been terminated who have not been adopted. Termination of these rights does not carry with it any guarantee the child will go to a stable home with loving parents. While the termination has severed the children from an inadequate parent, it has also severed them *612from a loving parent with whom they are biologically tied. The children who are four and five years old know their father and will suffer from the biological bond being severed and from the fact there never will be a solution to their problems with their father.
The State’s inability to place m adoptive homes the large number of children whose parental rights are being terminated, makes a strong argument to continue to work harder to help biological parents parent.