Court Opinion

ID: 9700453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:29:54.300405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:32.986888
License: Public Domain

DALIANIS, J.,
concurring specially. While I concur in the majority’s opinion because under our deferential standard of review the law and the record support it, the proceedings in this case trouble me. The child has been living with his foster family since October 13, 1998. Under the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (ASFA), he was entitled *9to a permanency hearing “no later than 12 months” after that date. 42 U.S.C.A. § 675(5)(c) (Supp. 2007). The record shows, however, that the court did not hold a permanency hearing until December 19, 2000, more than two years later.
Following that hearing, the district court established a “'provisional permanency plan” for reunifying the father and his son. Although, through the ensuing years, the court found that the father did not comply with this provisional permanency plan for one reason or another, it permitted the effort to reunify the father and son to continue. Specifically, the court found that the father was not in compliance at the May 15, 2001, August 21, 2001, November 13, 2001, January 23, 2002, June 24, 2002 and July 16, 2003 post-permanency review hearings, but still ordered the State to continue efforts to reunify the father and son. The court even entered a new permanency order on July 9, 2004, that found the father “unfit,” but, nonetheless, kept the permanency plan for reunification in place. The court did not change the permanency plan until October 2004, nearly four years after the provisional plan to reunite father and son had been approved.
I believe that leaving the father and son in legal uncertainty for four years is indefensible. Children need and deserve permanent living arrangements. This is why the ASFA requires a permanency hearing within twelve months of the child’s entry into foster care. See State, DYFS v. S.A., 908 A.2d 244, 250 (N.J. Super. Ct. Ch. Div. 2005). “If the parents do not show that they are able to provide adequate care of their child after that one (1) year time period, the federal government has mandated that the child deserves permanency, either through termination of the parents’ rights and subsequent adoption, or through placement in permanent foster care.” Division of Family Services v. L.C., No. CS00-04212, 2002 WL 1932501, at *2 (Del. Fam. Ct. Jan. 17, 2002) (unpublished opinion). “The philosophy behind ASFA is that it is unfair for a child to be held in limbo for a period of much longer than one (1) year.” Id.
In my view, preventing the child, the biological father and the foster parents from having a resolution of this case for approximately four years is also unfair. This is particularly so since the father, as the district court found in January 2002, was an “eager and devoted parent,” who “applied himself to learn parenting skills so as to better care for his son.” In spite of the father’s efforts, it was long since apparent that he would not be able to safely care for his son. He, his son and the foster parents should have been informed of that conclusion long before now. In keeping with the ASFA, I believe that the needs of all concerned would have been better served had the district court changed the permanency plan from reunification either to permanent foster care or termination of parental rights within a *10reasonable period of time after it approved the provisional permanency-plan.