In the Int. of: L.T., a Minor ( 2023 )

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NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT O.P. 65.37
IN THE INTEREST OF: L.T., A MINOR : IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
: PENNSYLVANIA
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APPEAL OF: M.H., MOTHER : No. 682 MDA 2023
Appeal from the Order Entered April 6, 2023
In the Court of Common Pleas of York County
Juvenile Division at No(s): CP-67-DP-0000108-2022
BEFORE: MURRAY, J., KING, J., and COLINS, J.*
MEMORANDUM BY KING, J.: FILED: OCTOBER 16, 2023
Appellant, M.H. (“Mother”), appeals from the order entered in the York
County Court of Common Pleas, which changed the permanency goal for L.T.
(“Child”) from reunification to adoption, following the motion of the York
County Office of Children, Youth and Families (“CYF”) for a combined
placement review and dispositional review hearing. We affirm.
The relevant facts and procedural history of this appeal are as follow.
On March 17, 2022, six-week-old Child was admitted to the emergency room
at Hershey Medical Center, where doctors discovered “a broken femur and rib
fractures on both the right and left sides that were in various stages of
healing.” (Dependency Petition, filed 5/17/22, at 2). Mother and C.T.
(“Father”) reported that they were the only caregivers for Child since his birth,
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* Retired Senior Judge assigned to the Superior Court.
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they denied dropping Child, and they could not explain how Child sustained
the injuries. The responding caseworker noted, however, that Mother “was
holding the child in an odd, non-comforting manner, i.e., away from her body
with both hands out in front of her.” (Id. at 3). CYF subsequently received a
child protective services referral alleging physical abuse.
CYF filed an application for emergency protective custody on May 13,
2022, which the court granted that same day. On May 17, 2022, CYF filed a
dependency petition. Later, CYF filed a motion for finding of aggravated
circumstances, arguing that Child suffered physical abuse resulting in serious
bodily injury. The court adjudicated Child dependent on June 1, 2022. On
October 20, 2022, the court found clear and convincing evidence to establish
that aggravated circumstances existed as to Mother and Father.
Thereafter, the court received a parenting capacity assessment of
Mother from Dr. Robert Gordon, M.Ed., a licensed psychologist.1 Dr. Gordon
expressed concerns over Mother’s difficulties with “setting and enforcing
boundaries in her relationship with [Father].” (CYF Exhibit 1, submitted
11/30/22, at 15). Dr. Gordon also stated that “the caseworker strongly
suspects that [Father] had engaged in domestic violence toward [Mother], yet
[Mother] remained in the relationship.” (Id.) Dr. Gordon observed: “If the
child’s father caused the injuries to the child, as suspected, there are some
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1 Dr. Gordon conducted this assessment on September 8, 2022, and the court
received the report at a status review hearing on November 30, 2022.
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concerns that [Mother] was not able to protect the child and not able to ensure
his safety.” (Id. at 14). Dr. Gordon concluded that Mother’s “weaknesses in
her parenting skills are in her ability to provide guidance and boundaries and
in her ability to ensure the safety of the child.” (Id. at 16).
On March 9, 2023, Dr. Lisa Jannetta, Psy.D., a licensed psychologist,
conducted a protective capacity assessment of Mother. Based upon this
assessment, Dr. Jannetta expressed concerns with Mother’s “history of
protecting her son and taking action when there were threats to his safety.”
(CYF Exhibit 2, submitted 4/6/23, at 12). Dr. Jannetta also opined that Mother
may not “comprehend the physical harm to her child and the dangers to his
safety in her home.” (Id. at 13). Dr. Jannetta concluded that it is
“questionable whether [Mother] is capable of effectively protecting [Child]
without supervision.” (Id. at 14).2
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2 The trial court provided the following analysis of Dr. Jannetta’s conclusions:
The evaluator found that some of Mother’s decisions
appeared to have been based upon her own needs, related
to her own complicated childhood, [rather] than the needs
of [Child]. … [Dr. Jannetta] found that Mother does not
seem to comprehend what secure and healthy relationships
are or to have a strong sense of self, which affects
[Mother’s] comprehension of what is required of her as a
protector of [Child]. [Dr. Jannetta] was encouraged by
Mother’s Family Advocate David Kasberg’s representations
of an improved bond between Mother and [Child]; however,
[Dr. Jannetta] noted how troubling Mother’s prior inability
to act on [Child]’s behalf was. Though Mother was able to
recognize by the time of her evaluation, that Father “did
(Footnote Continued Next Page)
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On April 4, 2023, CYF filed a motion for a combined placement review
and dispositional review hearing. The court conducted the hearing on April 6,
2023, and it summarized the witnesses’ testimony as follows:
Brittany Sunday testified that she is the family therapist
working with Mother and Father in this case. The current
goals for Mother were “stabilization of mental health,
increasing healthy coping skills for stress management with
a focus on anxiety, improving self-esteem and productive
communication skills.” Mother’s progress towards
stabilizing her mental health was rated as moderate. The
psychiatrist Mother saw diagnosed her with social anxiety
disorder and adjustment disorder with mixed emotion
disturbance. The psychiatrist recommended that Mother
continue working with Catholic Charities, including her
therapist through them, Leanne Meyers, and the
psychiatrist prescribed Mother medication. The medication
Mother was prescribed was fifty milligrams of Zoloft, which
the psychiatrist, Dr. Heinly, hoped would help Mother feel
less socially uncomfortable, which would enable her to “be
more appropriately assertive and confident in her
presentation and manner.” Mother’s progress towards her
other goals was also rated, by Ms. Sunday, as moderate.
Ms. Sunday described Mother as fidgeting a lot and having
social anxiety, which Ms. Sunday was working to teach her
coping skills for. Regarding Mother’s medication, Ms.
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something” to [Child], [Dr. Jannetta] noted that it was
unknown how Mother, who is overly dependent on others,
would act in an unsupervised situation. At the time of
preparation of the report, Mother had demonstrated an
“improved capacity for protectiveness with supervision.”
Considering the necessity of certainty in [Child’s] young life,
[the trial court] found it compelling that the evaluator wrote
“if [Mother] continues to improve on her trajectory, she may
eventually be able to function independently regarding
protective capacity.”
(Trial Court Opinion, filed 6/6/23, at 14-15) (internal footnotes and record
citations omitted) (emphasis in original).
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Sunday testified that, in her opinion, Mother had not been
taking it long enough, at the time of the hearing, for Ms.
Sunday to notice any effect. Regarding visitation progress,
Ms. Sunday testified that the next step would be partially
supervised visits and that, at that point, Ms. Sunday had no
concerns about moving forward with partial visitation[;]
however and importantly, Ms. Sunday admitted that she had
not reviewed [the] protective capacity assessment on
Mother, dated March 9, 2023, and therefore accepted [the
trial court’s] decree that there would be no progression
towards partially supervised visitation. Ms. Sunday
acknowledged that Mother was approved to have contact
with [Child] in the kinship home, supervised by the kinship
parents, for approximately three hours on weekends.
* * *
David Kasberg testified that he is a family advocate with
Catholic Charities and that he had been working with Mother
and Father. Mr. Kasberg supervised Mother’s visitation once
per week and Ms. Sunday covered the other weekly
visitations. These visitations occurred at Mother’s residence
and were fully supervised. Mr. Kasberg felt that Mother was
fully prepared and generally parented from a nurturing and
appropriate standpoint. Although Mr. Kasberg rated
Mother’s progress as moderate[,] he thereafter testified that
“I can’t say mom has done very well with our agency’s
services, so I can’t speak to that.”
* * *
Sarah White testified that she had written a report to the
court and that there were no updates in the interim. Ms.
White testified that [CYF] recommended that [Child] be
placed in the custody of [a maternal cousin], and that legal
custody be retained through [CYF]. Ms. White testified that
the [maternal cousin] only lived about ten to fifteen minutes
from the then current resource family; though the [maternal
cousin lives] across the state line in Maryland. [CYF]
continued to recommend that the goal be changed to
adoption due to the updated protective capacity assessment
that was completed by Dr. Janetta.
(Trial Court Opinion at 3-6) (internal record citations omitted). At the
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conclusion of the hearing, the court changed Child’s permanency goal from
reunification to adoption. On Monday, May 8, 2023, Mother timely filed notice
of appeal and a concise statement of errors.
Mother now raises two issues for our review:
Did the [trial] court abuse its discretion and [err] as a
matter of law when it unreasonably changed the goal from
reunification to adoption despite consistent positive
progress by Mother.
Did the [trial] court abuse its discretion and [err] as a
matter of law when it changed the goal to adoption from
reunification when in less than twelve (12) months Mother
made moderate progress in [alleviating] the circumstances
which necessitated the original placement, and it was
contrary to the best interest of the child.
(Mother’s Brief at 4).
Mother’s issues are related, and we address them together. Mother
argues that she has demonstrated moderate progress in alleviating the
circumstances that necessitated the original placement, and she continues her
attempts to achieve all goals outlined in her family service plan. Mother
emphasizes that she has implemented the recommendations provided by the
parenting and protective capacity assessments. Mother complains that the
parenting capacity assessment did not indicate that she lacks the protective
capacity to ever take care of Child. Mother insists that she meets all of Child’s
needs during visits, and she has a very strong bond with Child. Under these
circumstances, Mother concludes that the court’s decision “to change the goal
from reunification to adoption is not in the best interest of [Child],” and the
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court’s decision “is not supported by competent evidence.” (Id. at 20-21).
We disagree.
On appeal, goal change decisions are subject to an abuse of discretion
standard of review. In re N.C., 909 A.2d 818, 822 (Pa.Super. 2006).
In order to conclude that the trial court abused its discretion,
we must determine that the court’s judgment was
manifestly unreasonable, that the court did not apply the
law, or that the court’s action was a result of partiality,
prejudice, bias or ill will, as shown by the record. We are
bound by the trial court’s findings of fact that have support
in the record. The trial court, not the appellate court, is
charged with the responsibilities of evaluating credibility of
the witness and resolving any conflicts in the testimony. In
carrying out these responsibilities, the trial court is free to
believe all, part, or none of the evidence. When the trial
court’s findings are supported by competent evidence of
record, we will affirm, even if the record could also support
an opposite result.
Id. at 822-23 (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
The Juvenile Act controls the disposition of dependent children. In re
R.P., 957 A.2d 1205, 1217 (Pa.Super. 2008). Section 6351 provides in
relevant part:
§ 6351. Disposition of dependent child
* * *
(f) Matters to be determined at permanency
hearing.—At each permanency hearing, a court shall
determine all of the following:
(1) The continuing necessity for and appropriateness
of the placement.
(2) The appropriateness, feasibility and extent of
compliance with the permanency plan developed for the
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child.
(3) The extent of progress made toward alleviating the
circumstances which necessitated the original
placement.
(4) The appropriateness and feasibility of the current
placement goal for the child.
(5) The likely date by which the placement goal for the
child might be achieved.
(5.1) Whether reasonable efforts were made to finalize
the permanency plan in effect.
(6) Whether the child is safe.
* * *
(9) If the child has been in placement for at least 15 of
the last 22 months or the court has determined that
aggravated circumstances exist and that reasonable
efforts to prevent or eliminate the need to remove the
child from the child’s parent, guardian or custodian or to
preserve and reunify the family need not be made or
continue to be made, whether the county agency has
filed or sought to join a petition to terminate parental
rights and to identify, recruit, process and approve a
qualified family to adopt the child unless:
(i) the child is being cared for by a relative best
suited to the physical, mental and moral welfare of
the child;
(ii) the county agency has documented a
compelling reason for determining that filing a petition to
terminate parental rights would not serve the needs and
welfare of the child; or
(iii) the child’s family has not been provided with
necessary services to achieve the safe return to the
child’s parent, guardian or custodian within the time
frames set forth in the permanency plan.
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* * *
(f.1) Additional determination.—Based upon the
determinations made under subsection (f) and all relevant
evidence presented at the hearing, the court shall determine
one of the following:
(1) If and when the child will be returned to the child’s
parent, guardian or custodian in cases where the return
of the child is best suited to the safety, protection and
physical, mental and moral welfare of the child.
(2) If and when the child will be placed for adoption,
and the county agency will file for termination of parental
rights in cases where return to the child’s parent,
guardian or custodian is not best suited to the safety,
protection and physical, mental and moral welfare of the
child.
(3) If and when the child will be placed with a legal
custodian in cases where the return to the child’s parent,
guardian or custodian or being placed for adoption is not
best suited to the safety, protection and physical, mental
and moral welfare of the child.
(4) If and when the child will be placed with a fit and
willing relative in cases where return to the child’s
parent, guardian or custodian, being placed for adoption
or being placed with a legal custodian is not best suited
to the safety, protection and physical, mental and moral
welfare of the child.
* * *
42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6351(f), (f.1).
“When the child welfare agency has made reasonable efforts to return a
[dependent] child to his or her biological parent, but those efforts have failed,
then the agency must redirect its efforts towards placing the child in an
adoptive home.” In re N.C., supra at 823.
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[T]he fifteen-to-twenty-two-month timeframe set forth in
the Juvenile Act is not prerequisite to a goal change, but
rather is “an aspirational target in which to attain
permanency.” In the Interest of L.T., 158 A.3d 1266,
1279 (Pa. Super. 2017) (citing 42 Pa.C.S.A. § 6351(f.1)(9)).
While trial courts should not rush to change a child’s
permanency goal to adoption in circumstances where a
parent is making progress toward reunification, neither
should courts persist in attempting to reunite a family when
further reunification efforts would be futile and/or contrary
to a child’s best interest.
In re J.D.H., 171 A.3d 903, 909 (Pa.Super. 2017).
Although the agency has the burden to show a goal change
would serve the child’s best interests, “[s]afety,
permanency, and well-being of the child must take
precedence over all other considerations” under Section
6351. In re D.P., 972 A.2d 1221, 1227 (Pa.Super. 2009),
appeal denied, 601 Pa. 702, 973 A.2d 1007 (2009)
(emphasis in original); In re S.B., … 943 A.2d 973, 978
[(Pa.Super. 2008)], appeal denied, 598 Pa. 782, 959 A.2d
320 (2008). “[T]he parent’s rights are secondary” in a goal
change proceeding. In re D.P., supra.Because the focus is on the child’s best interests, a goal
change to adoption might be appropriate, even when a
parent substantially complies with a reunification plan. In
re N.C., supra at 826-27. Where a parent’s “skills,
including her judgment with regard to the emotional well-
being of her children, remain problematic[,]” a goal change
to adoption might be appropriate, regardless of the parent’s
compliance with a permanency plan. Id. at 825. The
agency is not required to offer services indefinitely, where a
parent is unable to properly apply the instruction provided.
… Thus, even where the parent makes earnest efforts, the
“court cannot and will not subordinate indefinitely a child’s
need for permanence and stability to a parent’s claims of
progress and hope for the future.” In re Adoption of
R.J.S., 901 A.2d 502, 513 (Pa.Super. 2006).
In re R.M.G., 997 A.2d 339, 347 (Pa.Super. 2010), appeal denied, 608 Pa.
648, 12 A.3d 372 (2010) (emphasis in original).
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Instantly, the trial court found that a goal change to adoption is
appropriate:
We do not deny that Ms. Sunday and Mr. Kasberg testified
that the parents had made “moderate progress.” However,
… even substantial progress, which is not present here, does
not necessarily dictate reunification. The plain fact of the
matter was that Mother’s protective capacity assessment
established that it was unknown whether Mother could
appropriately protect [Child] absent supervision. The
evaluator left it to the involved agencies and case manager
to determine at what point Mother might demonstrate
effective protective capacity and could parent absent
supervision and support. The involved agency
recommended the change of goal. Mother’s history of a lack
of protective capacity in regard to both herself and to
[Child], her shifting stories as to the cause of [Child’s]
injuries, her late recognition of Father’s role in [Child’s]
injuries, her delayed willingness to terminate her
relationship with Father, and the evaluator’s repeated
expressions of concern despite at least one report of
progress, as far as the parent-child bond, [were] all
concerning. … Mother might eventually be able to parent
[Child] unsupervised and without support, but [Child] needs
stability as soon as possible and the change of goal allows
for that.
* * *
Additionally, Mother’s moderate progress under supervision
has not obviated Mother’s clear susceptibility to mental
health issues, which, unfortunately, are a shorthand for
Mother’s inability to prioritize [Child’s] needs above her
own—especially as it regards [Child’s] physical safety. The
evaluator noted the progress reported on the parent-child
bond; however, the evaluator expressed enough concern
about Mother’s ability to prioritize [Child] that [the trial
court] felt compelled to provide [Child] permanency by way
of a change of goals. Reunification efforts would be futile
when Mother’s demonstrated inability to stand up for and
protect [Child], absent supervision, is unlikely to resolve
within an acceptable window of time. The best interests of
[Child] are served by providing him permanency. Further,
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it was clear to the [trial court] that Mother faces a long, long
road ahead in learning how to protect herself and stand on
her own two feet, let alone protecting [Child].
(Trial Court Opinion at 17-18, 20) (internal record citations omitted)
(emphasis in original).
Our review of the record confirms that sufficient evidence supported the
court’s findings. See In re N.C., supra. The court considered Mother’s
moderate progress in alleviating the circumstances that necessitated Child’s
placement. Nevertheless, the court also weighed the testimony and various
expert reports, including Dr. Jannetta’s protective capacity report that
questioned whether Mother would ever be able to protect and parent Child.
Based upon this evidence, the court determined that prioritizing permanency
in Child’s life best served his interests. See In re J.D.H., supra; In re
R.M.G., supra. We cannot say that the court abused its discretion in this
regard. See In re R.M.G., supra; In re N.C., supra. Accordingly, we affirm.
Order affirmed.
Judgment Entered.
Benjamin D. Kohler, Esq.
Prothonotary
Date: 10/16/2023
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