Tammy S. v. Ariz. Dep't of Econ. Sec.

Tammy S. v. Ariz. Dep't of Econ. Sec.

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION

BROWN, Judge

P1 Tammy S. ("Mother") appeals the juvenile court's termination of her parental rights to her son, Z.S. ¹For the following reasons, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

P2 Mother and Justin S. ("Father") are the biological parents of Z.S., who was born in January 2007. ²Two weeks after his birth, the Arizona Department of Economic Security ("ADES") took Z.S. into temporary custody and placed him in an emergency receiving home. ADES then filed a dependency petition alleging that Mother was unable to parent due to mental illness and domestic violence. The juvenile  [*2] court granted the petition in May 2007 and approved a plan for family reunification.

P3 Consistent with the court's order, ADES offered Mother reunification services, including psychological and psychiatric evaluation, individual counseling, medication monitoring, substance abuse assessment, substance abuse treatment, urinalysis testing, supervised visitation, and parent aide services. At a review hearing in May 2008, ADES moved to change the case plan to severance and adoption, which was denied by the juvenile court to "give mother the opportunity to reengage and correct some of her issues." The court ordered ADES to discuss and identify the special needs of Z.S. so Mother could address them and gain appropriate skills if needed.

P4 At the review hearing in August 2008, ADES asserted that no change had been made with regard to Mother's participation in services. Over Mother's objection, the juvenile court ordered that the case plan be changed to severance and adoption. ADES then filed its motion for termination, alleging that: (1) Mother  [*3] was unable to discharge her parental responsibilities due to mental illness and there were reasonable grounds to believe the condition would continue for a prolonged, indeterminate period; (2) Z.S. had been in an out-of-home placement for fifteen months or longer, Mother was unable to remedy the circumstances that caused the out-of-home placement, and there was a substantial likelihood that Mother would be unable to exercise proper and effective parental care in the near future; and (3) Mother had her parental rights to other children terminated within the preceding two years for the same cause and was currently unable to discharge parental responsibilities due to the same cause.

P5 At the three-day contested severance hearing, ADES presented the following evidence. Z.S. is Mother's seventh child. Mother's parental rights were terminated as to her other six children in December 2006 and May 2007 for mental illness and instances of domestic violence between Mother and Father. Prior to the termination of her rights to the first six children, ADES tried to reunify Mother with her children by returning only some the children to her care at a given time. Mother had difficulty managing the  [*4] children's behaviors; in one instance she returned the children to their foster placements.

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