Filed Date: 7/2/2015
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 11/1/2024
Appeals from an order of the Family Court, Steuben County (Marianne Furfure, A.J.), entered November 22, 2013 in a proceeding pursuant to Social Services Law § 384-b. The order, among other things, terminated respondents’ parental rights with respect to the subject child.
It is hereby ordered that the order so appealed from is unanimously affirmed without costs.
Memorandum: In this proceeding pursuant to Social Services Law § 384-b, respondent father and respondent mother appeal from an order that, inter alia, terminated their parental rights with respect to the subject child and ordered that the child be freed for adoption. We reject the parents’ contention that Family Court erred in finding that the child is a permanently neglected child and in terminating the parents’ parental rights with respect to him. Petitioner met its burden of establishing “by clear and convincing evidence that it made diligent efforts to encourage and strengthen the relationship between the [parents] and [the child] by providing ‘services and other assistance aimed at ameliorating or resolving the problems preventing [the child’s] return to [the parents’] care’. . . , and that the [parents] failed substantially and continuously to plan for the future of the child although physically and financially able to do so . . . Although the [parents] participated in . . . services offered by petitioner, [they] did not successfully address or gain insight into the problems that led to the removal of the child and continued to prevent the child’s safe return” (Matter of Giovanni K., 62 AD3d 1242, 1243 [2009], lv denied 12 NY3d 715 [2009]; see Social Services Law § 384-b [7] [a]). Contrary to the parents’ further contentions, we conclude that the court properly denied their respective requests for a suspended judgment (see Matter of Lillianna G. [Orena G.], 104 AD3d 1224, 1225 [2013]; Matter of Dahmani M. [Jana M.], 104 AD3d 1245,