One does not need to be a Michigan child abuse lawyer to know: facing termination of parental rights is one of the scariest things that parent or guardian can experience. Fortunately, a recent case in the Michigan appellate courts has offered parents in this very difficult situation some hope. In Re R. Morrow, Minor, the Barry County Circuit court granted the request of the Department of Human Services (DHS) to terminate the parental rights of the child’s father who resided out-of-state and reunite the child with the custodial mother. However, this plan eventually failed and the father was still without parental rights, even though the Department of Human Services offered little or no opportunity for him to work a service plan and regain placement.
According to state law, DHS is obligated to make “reasonable efforts to reunify child and family.” Unfortunately, what passes as reasonable efforts in some cases is shocking. In the Morrow case, DHS did not even offer a case service plan or arrange for a home visit with the father. The Court of Appeals was highly critical of the DHS position and the trial court ruling that DHS’s four contacts with the father, one request for a drug screen and three supervised visits with the child constituted reasonable efforts to reunify father and child. The Court of Appeals stated: “We fall just shy of stating that petitioner (DHS) in some ways placed roadblocks in the way of respondent [father’s] possible reunification with [the child]. . .”
This case points out some of the difficulties that parents have with the Department of Human Services once the court has jurisdiction over the family. DHS often does very little, if anything, to reunify a child with an out-of-state parent, sometimes taking months to initiate any services at all for a parent unable to attend court proceedings. In this case, DHS could have requested a home inspection of the father from the Department of Human Services Division of Family and Children Services in his state. However, even when the mother voluntarily terminated her parental rights, Michigan DHS took no significant action to reunify child and father. The Court of Appeals stated:
“Because petitioner failed to provide a case service plan to respondent, never evaluated his home for possible visitation, never referred him for services, and in general made no other efforts at reunification especially when circumstances changed and [the] mother’s parental rights were terminated, the trial court clearly erred in finding that petitioner established by clear and convincing evidence that respondent would not be able to provide proper care and custody of his daughter within a reasonable time.”
The best CPS attorneys offer parents the benefit of our courtroom experience and knowledge of the law in defending against cases brought by Children’s Protective Services (CPS) and DHS. These are the people who work hard to reunify families, demanding more than a superficial effort from DHS to reach out to parents.
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