In re the Matter of the Welfare of the Children of: N. A. R. and R. P., Parents.

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A19-0804

In re the Matter of the Welfare of the Children of: N. A. R. and R. P., Parents.

Filed November 12, 2019
Affirmed
Connolly, Judge

Meeker County District Court
File No. 47-JV-19-79

John E. Mack, Joel A. Novak, New London Law, P.A., New London, Minnesota (for
appellant-mother N.A.R.)

Anne M. Carlson, St. Paul, Minnesota (for respondent-father R.P.)

Brandi L. Schiefelbein, Meeker County Attorney, Jeffrey D. Albright, Assistant County
Attorney, Litchfield, Minnesota (for respondent Meeker County Social Services)

Considered and decided by Connolly, Presiding Judge; Bjorkman, Judge; and
Reyes, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
CONNOLLY, Judge
Appellant challenges the order terminating her parental rights (TPR) to her
daughter, arguing that the district court erred in not ordering another parental -capacity
assessment, in determining that respondent county provided reasonable efforts to
rehabilitate ap pellant and unite her with her child, and in concluding that terminating

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appellant’s parental rights is in her child’s best interests. Because we see no error, we
affirm.
FACTS
Appellant N.A.R. is the mother of five children , born in 1998, 2000, 20 03, 2004,
and 2014. In November 2015, the county in which appellant then resided filed a children
in need of protection or services (CHIPS) petition on behalf of her children. By May 2016,
appellant had moved to Meeker County, and respondent Meeker County Social Services
(MCSS) paid for a parenting -capacity assessment of appellant , performed by F .W., a
licensed psychologist. Appellant was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses. In June
2016, her first child reached the age of majority.
In May 2018, MCSS filed a CHIPS petition on behalf of appellant’s other children;
appellant admitted to the petition in June 2018. In August, appellant’s second child reached
the age of majority.
In December 2018, appellant completed an additional mental-health assessment and
moved for an order that MCSS provide another parenting-capacity assessment. In January
2019, MCSS filed a pet ition to terminate appellant’s parental rights to her three youngest
children, and appellant began treatment with an Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health
Services (ARMHS) worker. The district court approved appellant’s request to have another
parenting-capacity assessment but did not require MCSS to pay for it.
In March 2019, appellant voluntarily terminated her parental rights to her third and
fourth children. The district court found that:

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[appellant’s third child] has experienced 321 days in protective
care; [she] self-mutilates and has attempted suicide no less than
7 times . . . and [her fourth child] has experienced 564 days in
out of home care and used to be plagued by somatic, or non -
epileptic, seizures; this has been identified as an emotional
reaction or maladaptive coping mechanism to a chaotic and
stressful environment. All of the mental -health conditions of
the children are directly related to the chaotic caregiving they
received from [appellant] and her failure to consistently meet
[their] needs.

Appellant does not challenge these findings.
Also in March 2019, a ppellant’s fifth child, C., was diagnosed with disinhibited
social-engagement disorder (DSED) by a license d mental health professional, N. L.; C.’s
father voluntarily terminated his parental rights to her for good cause, and a trial was held
on the termination of appellant’s parental rights to C. The district court found that appellant
was palpably unfit to be a party to the parent-child relationship and terminated her parental
rights. Appellant’s motion for amended findings or a new trial was denied. On appeal, she
challenges the order terminating her parental rights and the denial of her motion.
D E C I S I O N
Standard of Review
“[Appellate courts] affirm the district court’s termination of parental rights when at
least one statutory ground for termination is supported by clear and convincing evidence
and termination is in the best interests of the child, provided that the county has mad e
reasonable efforts to reunite the family.” In re Welfare of Children of S.E.P., 744 N.W.2d
381, 385 (Minn. 2008) (citation omitted).

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1. The 2016 Parental-Capacity Assessment

Appellant argues that the district court erred by permitting MCSS to stop providing
services to appellant and by turning down her re quest to have another parental -capacity
assessment. But the record reflects that the district court did neither of these things.
Appellant provides no reference to the record or the transcript ind icating when the
district court permitted MCSS to stop providing services to appellant . Moreover, in
January 2019, after a hearing and in response to MCSS’s motion for a TPR and an order
relieving MCSS of making reasonable efforts, the district court issu ed an order providing
that:
18. [MCSS] is not relieved of reasonable efforts at this time.
. . . .
21. [Appellant’s] request for an additional parental capacity
evaluation is APPROVED. MCSS shall not bear the burden of
paying for an additional parental capacity evaluation. . . . . The
scheduling of the additional parental capacity evaluation s hall
not be further delayed.

Thus, the district court neither permitted MCSS to stop providing services nor denied
appellant’s request for another parental-capacity assessment; it denied only her request that
MCSS be required to pay for a second assessment.
In April 2019, following trial, the district court expl ained why the May 2016
parental-capacity assessment was still reliable:
[F.W., a licensed psychologist] conducted a psychological and
parenting assessment of [appellant] on May 12, 2016. [He]
issued a report (Exhibit 25) summarizing his findings
following the psychological and parenting assessment. [He]
testified credibly. [His] approach in assessing [appellant’s]
psychological issues and functioning is reliable and his
findings are relevant and pertinent to the issues before the

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Court. Even though the assessment took place in 2016, [his]
findings and conclusions remain relevant because they are
largely based on static factors.

Appellant cites no legal support for her view that MCSS should have been required to pay
for an updated assessment. The district court did not abuse its discretion in relying on the
2016 parenting-capacity assessment performed on appellant by a licensed psychologist and
on that psychologist’s testimony.1
2. MCSS’s Reasonable Efforts
Appellate courts review the district court’s determination of the existence of a
statutory basis for an order terminating parental rights for an abuse of discretion. In re
Welfare of Ch ild of J.T .K., 814 N.W.2d 76, 87 (Minn. App. 2012). Before determining
whether to terminate parental rights, a district court must ask whether the county has made
reasonable efforts to rehabilitate the parent and reunite the family. Minn. Stat. § 260C.301,
subd. 8(1) (2018). Factors to consider in this determinatio n are whether services were
(1) relevant to the child’s safety, (2) adequate for the needs o f the child and the family,
(3) culturally appropriate, (4) available and accessible, (5) consistent and timely, and
(6) realistic under the circumstances. Minn. Stat. § 260.012(h)(1)-(6) (2018).
Appellant argues that MCSS did not make a “significant attempt to address [her]
mental-health needs.” But appellant declined to take advantage of the services offered and
recommended to her. In the 2016 parental -capacity assessment, F.W. recommended that

1 Appellant argues that the district court ab used its discretion in not consider ing evidence
that the c ondition of appellant’s home had improved. But appellant’s mental health and
her failure to treat or even acknowledge it, not the condition of her home, were the primary
reason for the termination of her parental rights.

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appellant complete individual therapy, attend couples counseling, have regular psychiatric
consultations, remain alcohol and drug free, attend sober meetings twice weekly, and
maintain employment or volunteer work. Appellant did none of these things and lied to
F.W. about it. F.W. was questioned and testified as follows:
Q: To your knowledge, did [appellant ] complete those
recommendations?
A: I had met with [her] in months after where she had told
me she had completed some of those tasks and so I sent a letter
to social services. . . . Then after social services received the
letter, they informed me that sh e had not actually completed
tasks.
. . . .
Q: . . . [W]hat did . . . Social Services report to you?
A: There were a number of things that they had concern[s]
about which [were] relate d to what [appellant] had told me
when I spoke to her. For example, that [appellant] had told me
that she was in a relationship and they had been attending
couples counseling. I was informed they hadn’t been attending
couples counseling and they had separated numerous times.
. . . .
Q: [A]fter meeting with [ appellant], did you issue this
letter?
A: Yes I did.
Q: And what were you communicating to the county social
services in this letter?
A: [Appellant] had told me that she had been illegal drug
free for more than six months. That she was involved in
intensive individual therapy. That she was attending parenting
training and that she was being compliant and cooperating with
her psychiatric work.
Q: And so then you received [a letter from social services]
and what changed?
A: Well she hadn’t been see ing her therapist. She wasn’t
participating in couples counseling. She had taken herself off
her psychiatric meds. She had tested positive for substances.
She hasn’t been maintaining contact with her sponsor. She was
not employed. She hadn’t been cooperating with p arenting
education. Basically she hadn’t b een following through with
the recommendations.

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. . . .
A: . . . . [W]hen I found out none of that was true, then I
realized that’s just more of her borderline personality disorder
and I probably should’ve seen it coming.

After learning that appellant had not complied with his recommendations and had lied
about doing so, F.W. withdrew his recommendation that the children be returned to her.
In April 2017, MCSS recommended that appellant have mental -health services.
Appellant informed a case manager that “she really does not need a whole lot of assistance
as far as mental health because s he can recognize her issues.” In May 2018, appellant
completed a diagnostic assessment with L.W., a licensed psychologist, who recommended
that appellant return for therapy. Appellant made an appointment but never returned. In
December 2018, appellant had another mental -health diagnostic assessment; again
individual psychotherapy was recommended, along with other mental-health services.
Appellant testified about these recommendations and about her use of prescribed
medication.
Q: Did you follow through on those recommendations?
A: I did not. Not all of them.
Q: Can you explain why?
A: I did the assessment with [L.W.] and . . . she said that
she was going to recommend individual therapy every couple
weeks for a few months, but I didn’t receive [a] copy of the
whole assessment. I just never went back so I didn’t receive
[a] copy of it so I w asn’t aware of the two other
recommendations.
Q: You didn’t attend the individual therapy though?
A: I did not.
Q: And why not?
A: I didn’t . . . feel it was a priority with everything going
on . . . to add one more thing every couple weeks when the
doctor or nobody seemed to make it appear like it was that big
of a deal.

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. . . .
Q: Do you think you need medications?
A: I do not.
Q: Can you explain a little bit?
A: There was a period of time in my life that I definitely
needed medication. I utilized medication at those times. . . .
My symptoms have improved quite extensively over the last
several years to where I no longer feel that I need the
medication along with the therapies in order to maintain my
diagnoses.
. . . .
Q: Is there a reason you don’t want to take [the prescribed
medications]?
A: Well there’s a lot of side effects to those medications
and a lot of times the side effects did outweigh the benefits of
the m edications and why put myself through the torment of
side effects if I don’t feel [I need it] and I’m doing well without
the medication.

This testimony reflects appellant’s belief that she, not mental-health professionals, should
decide whether she engages in therapy and takes prescribed medications.
The problem is not that MCSS has not provided adequate services; it is that appellant
has chosen to refuse the services provided. The fact that mental-health services are refused
does not mean that the co unty failed to provide reasonable services. See In re Welfare of
A.D., 535 N.W.2d 643, 649 (Minn. 1995).
3. C.’s Best Interests
The district court found that:
[Appellant] clearly loves [C. ] and has an interest in
maintaining the parent child relationship. [Appellant],
however, has a terrible track record at parenting. [She] is
barely able to take care of her own needs and requires the use
of an ARMHS worker. Unfortunately, [she] failed t o accept
the referral for this service until much too late. [She] receives
disability due to her mental health issues; this means she does
not have the capability to maintain employment. . . .

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[Appellant’s] interest in maintaining the parent child
relationship does seem to be based on her need to have people
around her to support her mental health needs and stave off
loneliness. Her interest is not in actually providing what [C. ]
needs to be a successful child, but in receiving the benefit of
having a child near her.
. . . [C.’s] interest in maintaining the parent child
relationship with [appellant] is tenuous. [C.’s] needs have not
been met by [appellant] and she has developed maladaptive
coping strategies to ensure her needs are being met by myriad
external de facto caregivers, a.k.a. strangers. . . . This is a
symptom that [C .] has not had her needs met consistently by
[appellant] and has had to go searching innately and intuitively
for random caregivers to meet her needs. There is no reason to
believe [appellant] has adjusted her parenting skills to meet
[C.’s] needs. . . .
. . . .
It is in the best interests of [C. ] that the parenta l rights of
[appellant] . . . are terminated . . . .

Appellant argues that the district court failed to make findin gs on the best interests
of C. But the district court did make findings, based on the testimony of N.L., a licensed
mental health professional specializing in infant and early childhood mental health who
interviewed and observed both C. and her father. The district court found that her
“education, training and methodology are sufficient to make her a reliable and credible
witness regarding her conclusions about [C.’s] diagnosis,” which was DSED.
Appellant claims N.L.’s testimony expl aining DSED went “beyond junk science
into witchcraft,” but does not explain why a layman with no experience in the field of
childhood mental disorders is qualified to make this judgment on the testimony of a trained
professional with nine years of experience.
Both at trial and in her brief to this court, appellant relies on the fact that, three
months before trial on January 14, 2019, she began weekly appointments with an ARMHS

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worker and says that this has resulted in improvements in her mental health. She quotes
extensively from the worker’s testimony to support this. But the worker testified that he
had “no specific psychology training,” and he said nothing about appellant’s ability to
parent, only that she was improving in social interactions, copi ng skills, and task
completion.
Appellant admits that the ARMHS worker’s testimony contradicted the testimony
of the mental-health professionals who testified earlier and that the district court was free
to disregard the ARMHS worker’s testimony and cr edit that of the professionals, but she
argues that, because the ARMHS worker had met with appellant more recently, his
testimony has more value. 2 But the psychologist’s testimony was directed specifically at
the issue before the district court, namely ap pellant’s capacity to parent, while that of the
ARMHS worker did not address this issue at all. Moreover, because appellant’s mental
illness is the most significant reason she is incapable of parenting, testimony from someone
not qualified to diagnose or treat mental illness would not be relevant.
The district court made adequate findings that were supported by clear and
convincing evidence to support its conclusion that terminating appellant’s parental rights
would be in C.’s best interest.
Affirmed.

2 Appellant also argues that the psychologist’s testimony involved “remarkable” claims
and should have been excluded under the Frye-Mack standard. This claim is forfeited
because it was never presented to the district court. See Thiele v. Stich, 425 N.W.2d 580,
582 (Minn. 1988).