El Dorado County Department of Human Services v. R.D.

Filed 7/9/13 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (El Dorado) ----

In re E.D., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court C072238 Law.

EL DORADO COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF (Super. Ct. No. HUMAN SERVICES, SDP2011-0021)

Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.

R.D.,

Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL from a judgment (order) of the Superior Court of El Dorado County, Thomas E. Warriner, Judge. Reversed with directions.

Caitlin U. Christian, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Edward L. Knapp, County Counsel, and Scott C. Starr, Deputy County Counsel, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

R.D. (father) appeals from the juvenile court‟s order refusing to return E.D. (minor) to his custody at the 12-month review hearing. (Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 366.21, subd. (f), 395.) Respondent El Dorado County Department of Human Services (the Department) agrees that the minor should be returned to father. We shall reverse.

1

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND The minor, born in the summer of 2003, is the child of father and M.W. (mother). He has three half siblings: R.R., T.W., and M.D. Born in the spring of 2009, M.D. is father‟s child with his girlfriend, M.C. (father‟s girlfriend). Half siblings R.R. and T.W. have different fathers. The minor was removed from mother‟s custody in 2009 because of her substance abuse problems and placed with father, but in June 2010 mother regained custody in family court after a domestic violence incident between father and father‟s girlfriend. Father was given supervised visitation; he attended the majority of his visits, which were “very appropriate.” In August 2011 the minor, R.R., and T.W. were removed from mother‟s custody because of a drug relapse, and the juvenile court assumed jurisdiction over them. At disposition in October 2011 the juvenile court rejected the Department‟s recommendation that the minor be returned to father‟s care with a plan of family maintenance services.1 The court ordered the minors placed in foster care and granted reunification services to father and to T.W.‟s father, but not to mother (or to R.R.‟s father). The court thereafter ordered the minors placed with the maternal grandmother. In February 2012 the juvenile court increased father‟s visitation to eight hours a week, with no overnight visits pending a home assessment. The assessment, done by an ICPC (Interstate Compact on Placement of Children) worker in Nevada, where father lived, found that his home was appropriate for overnight visits. However, the court declined to order overnight visits until it had received an assessment with father‟s