P.R.P. v. Marshall County Department of Human Resources (Appeal from Marshall Juvenile Court: JU-19-739.02).

Rel: December 13, 2024

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue,
Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections
may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter.

ALABAMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS
OCTOBER TERM, 2024-2025
________________________

CL-2023-0899
________________________

P.R.P.

v.

Marshall County Department of Human Resources

Appeal from Marshall Juvenile Court
(JU-19-739.02)

MOORE, Presiding Judge.

P.R.P. ("the mother") appeals from a judgment entered by the

Marshall Juvenile Court ("the juvenile court") terminating her parental

rights to J.A.J.-R. ("the child"). We reverse the judgment and remand the

case for further proceedings.
CL-2023-0899

Background

The mother is a Guatemalan citizen; she gave birth to the child out

of wedlock on September 20, 2014. In early 2019, with the agreement of

the mother, the mother's "partner" F.M. ("the father") illegally migrated

to the United States with the child. In March 2019, the father and the

child settled in Marshall County, while the mother remained in

Guatemala. On July 18, 2019, the father was arrested and charged with

a sexual offense against the child, and the Marshall County Department

of Human Resources ("DHR") took the child into protective custody. The

juvenile court subsequently adjudicated the child to be a dependent child

and placed the child into foster care. DHR did not contact the mother to

inform her of those developments.

On June 22, 2020, still without having contacted the mother, DHR

filed a petition to terminate the parental rights of the mother and of the

father to the child.1 The juvenile court ordered that the petition be served

on the mother by publication in a Guatemalan newspaper. On July 7,

1The juvenile court had subject-matter jurisdiction over the case

pursuant to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement
Act, Ala. Code 1975, § 30-3B-101 et seq., particularly Ala. Code 1975, §
30-3B-201(a)(2).
2
CL-2023-0899

2021, the juvenile court conducted a trial on the termination-of-parental-

rights petition in the absence of the mother, and, on July 12, 2021, the

juvenile court entered a judgment purporting to terminate the parental

rights of the mother and the father. On November 11, 2021, the mother

filed a motion for relief from the judgment insofar as it terminated her

parental rights, which the juvenile court granted on January 19, 2022.

On March 4, 2022, the mother filed an answer to the petition to terminate

her parental rights. 2 Following an amendment to the petition, and the

filing of an amended answer, the case proceeded to trial on May 17 and

18, 2023, and August 31, 2023.

2This court has determined that the juvenile court acquired
personal jurisdiction over the mother. Although the mother was not
served in accordance with the Inter-American Convention on Letters
Rogatory and Additional Protocol, Jan. 30, 1975, 28 U.S.C. § 1781, service
under the terms of that treaty is not mandatory nor exclusive. See
Alvarado-Fernandez v. Mazoff, 151 So. 3d 8, 14 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014).
DHR attempted service by publication pursuant to Ala. Code 1975, § 12-
15-318; even if the service did not strictly comply with § 12-15-318, after
the mother obtained relief from the original judgment terminating her
parental rights, she filed an answer without raising any defense as to
insufficient service of process, and the mother generally appeared in the
case, thereby waiving any objection to personal jurisdiction. See R.M. v.
Elmore Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 75 So. 3d 1195, 1200 (Ala. Civ. App.
2011).
3
CL-2023-0899

On December 4, 2023, the juvenile court entered a judgment

terminating the parental rights of the mother, finding, among other

things, that the mother had abandoned the child by allowing the child to

illegally immigrate to the United States and that "the distance between

... DHR and the mother as well as the language barrier make any efforts

or services, much less reasonable efforts, leading toward the

rehabilitation of the mother impossible and therefore failed." On

December 16, 2023, the mother filed a postjudgment motion to alter,

amend, or vacate the judgment, or, in the alternative, for a new trial. On

December 18, 2023, the mother filed a notice of appeal. On December 31,

2023, the juvenile court denied the mother's postjudgment ,motion and

the appeal ripened.

Issues

The mother raises multiple issues on appeal, but we find the

dispositive issue to be whether sufficient evidence sustains the findings

regarding abandonment and reasonable efforts.

Standard of Review

A judgment terminating parental rights must be supported by clear

and convincing evidence, which is " ' " [e]vidence that, when weighed
4
CL-2023-0899

against evidence in opposition, will produce in the mind of the trier of fact

a firm conviction as to each essential element of the claim and a high

probability as to the correctness of the conclusion . " ' " C.O. v. Jefferson

Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 206 So. 3d 621, 627 (Ala. Civ. App. 2016)

(quoting L.M. v. D.D.F., 840 So. 2d 171, 179 (Ala. Civ. App. 2002), quoting

in turn Ala. Code 1975, § 6-11-20(b)(4)).

" '[T]he evidence necessary for appellate
affirmance of a judgment based on a factual
finding in the context of a case in which the
ultimate standard for a factual decision by the
trial court is clear and convincing evidence is
evidence that a fact-finder reasonably could find to
clearly and convincingly ... establish the fact
sought to be proved.'

"KGS Steel[, Inc. v. McInish,] 47 So. 3d [749] at 761 [(Ala. Civ.
App. 2006)].

"... [F]or trial courts ruling ... in civil cases to which a
clear-and-convincing-evidence standard of proof applies, 'the
judge must view the evidence presented through the prism of
the substantive evidentiary burden[,]' [Anderson v. Liberty
Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 254 (1986)]; thus, the appellate
court must also look through a prism to determine whether
there was substantial evidence before the trial court to
support a factual finding, based upon the trial court's
weighing of the evidence, that would 'produce in the mind [of
the trial court] a firm conviction as to each element of the
claim and a high probability as to the correctness of the
conclusion .' § 25-5-81(c)[, Ala. Code 1975]."

5
CL-2023-0899

Ex parte McInish, 47 So. 3d 767, 778 (Ala. 2008). This court does not

reweigh the evidence but, rather, determines whether the findings of fact

made by the juvenile court are supported by evidence that the juvenile

court could have found to be clear and convincing. See Ex parte T.V., 971

So. 2d 1, 9 (Ala. 2007). When those findings rest on ore tenus evidence,

this court presumes their correctness. Id. We review the legal

conclusions drawn from the evidence without a presumption of

correctness. J.W. v. C.B., 68 So. 3d 878, 879 (Ala. Civ. App. 2011).

Analysis

The Alabama Juvenile Justice Act ("the AJJA"), Ala. Code 1975, §

12-15-101 et seq., establishes the following goal for juvenile courts:

"To reunite a child with his or her parent or parents as quickly
and as safely as possible when the child has been removed
from the custody of his or her parent or parents unless
reunification is judicially determined not to be in the best
interests of the child."

§ 12-15-101(3). Pursuant to that goal, once a child has been removed

from the family home, a juvenile court should immediately ascertain

whether the child can be safely reunited with his or her parent or parents.

If the juvenile court determines that it is not in the best interests of the

child to reunite the parent or parents at that time and places the child
6
CL-2023-0899

into the legal custody of the Alabama Department of Human Resources

and into foster care, the juvenile court must, within 60 days, find that

"reasonable efforts" have been made to "make it possible for a child to

return safely to the home of the child," Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-312(b), or

that such reasonable efforts are not required to be made. § 12-15-

312(a)(2). 3

In this case, on July 18, 2019, DHR, on an emergency basis,

summarily removed the child from the home he was sharing with his

father to protect the child from sexual abuse. On July 19, 2019, the

juvenile court entered a shelter-care order awarding DHR, who had

already placed the child into foster care, legal custody of the child.

Because the father had been credibly accused of molesting the child and

was in jail, the child could not be quickly and safely returned to his

custody. However, as Christy Smith, a DHR social worker, testified, even

in cases of parental abuse, a child can be reunited with the other,

nonoffending parent. See generally L.M. v. Shelby Cnty. Dep't of Hum.

Res., 86 So. 3d 377 (Ala. Civ. App. 2011). Accordingly, the mother

3The record contains no order finding that reasonable efforts were

not required to be made.
7
CL-2023-0899

contends that DHR had a duty to use reasonable efforts to reunite her

with the child.

DHR counters that, because the mother abandoned the child,

reasonable family-reunification efforts were not required. See Ala. Code

1975, § 12-15-312(c)(1) (providing that reasonable efforts are not required

when a parent has subjected a child to abandonment); Ala. Code 1975, §

12-15-319(a)(1) (providing that, when a parent has abandoned a child,

"proof shall not be required of reasonable efforts to prevent removal or

reunite the child with the parents"). The AJJA defines "abandonment"

as:

"A voluntary and intentional relinquishment of the custody of
a child by a parent, or a withholding from the child, without
good cause or excuse, by the parent, of his or her presence,
care, love, protection, maintenance, or the opportunity for the
display of filial affection, or the failure to claim the rights of a
parent, or failure to perform the duties of a parent."

Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-301(1). In the judgment, the juvenile court

specifically found that the mother had abandoned the child by allowing

the child to illegally immigrate to the United States without any

reasonable expectation that the family would be reunited, thereby

voluntarily and intentionally relinquishing custody of the child to the

8
CL-2023-0899

father and, without good cause or excuse, depriving the child of her

parental care and affection.

The undisputed evidence in the case shows that the mother

voluntarily agreed to allow the child to immigrate to the United States

without her. The mother testified that she and the father had mutually

decided that the father should take the child with him so that the child

could be educated in an American school while the father worked to earn

enough money to build a house. The mother testified that, if the plan

succeeded, she would join the father and the child, leaving the mother

and the father's two younger children to be raised by relatives in

Guatemala, and that, if not, the father and the child would return to the

village where the mother and the two younger children resided. The

mother understood that the father and the child could be gone for an

indefinite period, even as long as four years. The child's paternal

grandfather purchased a cellular telephone for the mother so that she

could maintain communication with the father and the child in the

meantime. For several months, the mother used the cell phone to talk

with the father and the child, until the cell phone was confiscated by DHR

9
CL-2023-0899

on July 18, 2019, at which point she lost her sole means of communicating

with the child.

This court has recognized that an illegal immigrant does not

necessarily abandon a child by returning to his or her home country for

a prolonged period to obtain a visa, see J.B. v. DeKalb Cnty. Dep't Hum.

Res., 12 So. 3d 100 (Ala. Civ. App. 2008) (plurality opinion), or by being

deported and becoming unable to personally care for a child. See V.G.J.

v. Tuscaloosa Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 368 So. 3d 886 (Ala. Civ. App.

2022). This court has not, however, specifically addressed whether a

parent from another country abandons a child by allowing the child to

illegally immigrate with another parent to this country. Like in all cases

of abandonment, that depends on the intention of the parent, see

Jefferson Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res. v. S.W., 324 So. 3d 1240, 1257 (Ala.

Civ. App. 2020) (holding, in pertinent part, that a "finding of

abandonment requires evidence of intention"), and the justification for

the parent's actions. See C.C. v. L.J., 176 So. 3d 208, 211 (Ala. Civ. App.

2015) ("[A] juvenile court may premise a finding of abandonment only

upon evidence indicating that a parent voluntarily, intentionally, and

10
CL-2023-0899

unjustifiably committed the actions or omissions set out in § 12-15-301,

Ala. Code 1975.").

In this case, the mother concedes that she freely chose to allow the

child to migrate to the United States in the company of the father;

undisputedly, however, the mother made that decision to afford the child

a better standard of living. See D.C. v. A.B.C., 417 N.J. Super. 41, 48, 8

A.3d 260, 264 (Ch. Div. 2010) (holding that Guatemalan mother, who

paid "coyotes" to smuggle minor across border so that he could thrive

while residing with his father who was already in the United States,

could not be said to have abandoned minor). No evidence shows that the

mother intended to voluntarily relinquish her custodial rights to the

child. See Ex parte D.J., 645 So. 2d 303, 306 (Ala. 1994) (defining

"voluntary relinquishment" to include a surrender of custodial rights).

The mother and the father contemplated that the mother would remain

in communication with the child -- which she did -- and that they would

all be reunited at some point, depending on the father's economic

fortunes. Contrary to the juvenile court's findings, when the mother

decided to allow the child to migrate to the United States, the mother did

have a reasonable expectation that she and the child would be reunited.
11
CL-2023-0899

Although the mother indicated that she had known that it may take four

years or more before she was reunited with the child, this court has

explicitly rejected a "rule that would equate any indefinite prolonged

absence with abandonment." J.B., 12 So. 3d at 111 n.16 (plurality

opinion). We, thus, reject the juvenile court's finding that the mother

abandoned the child by letting the child relocate to the United States

with the father.4

In the absence of the mother's abandonment of the child, DHR had

a duty to use reasonable efforts to reunite the child with the mother. The

AJJA contains no provision exempting DHR from discharging that duty

when the parent does not speak English. The reasonableness of the

efforts used by DHR to reunite a family depends on the unique needs of

4In arguing in support of the abandonment finding, DHR notes that,

after DHR assumed custody of the child on July 18, 2019, the mother lost
contact with the child; however, the juvenile court premised its
abandonment finding solely on the mother's allowing the child to migrate
to the United States. When setting aside the original judgment
terminating the mother's parental rights, the juvenile court, referring to
the period after DHR took custody of the child, found that the mother
"appears to have taken reasonable steps, under the circumstances, to
determine what circumstances her child was in and who was caring for
her child." Thus, we do not address any alleged implied finding that the
mother abandoned the child after July 18, 2019.
12
CL-2023-0899

each family, including any special accommodations the family may

require due to language barriers. See In re J.P., 14 Cal. App. 5th 616,

625, 221 Cal. Rptr. 3d 748, 755 (2017); Pravat P. v. Department of Health

& Soc. Servs., 249 P.3d 264, 268-271 (Alaska 2011); In re Sorin P., 58

A.D.3d 743, 873 N.Y.S.2d 89 (N.Y. App. Div. 2009); In re Abraham C., 55

A.D.3d 1442, 865 N.Y.S.2d 820 (N.Y. App. Div. 2008); State of New

Mexico ex rel. Children, Youth & Families Dep't v. William M., 161 P.3d

262 (N.M. Ct. App. 2007); In re Lopez, 166 Ohio App.3d 688, 703, 852

N.E.2d 1266 (2006). Likewise, the obligation to exert reasonable efforts

toward reunification equally applies with respect to parents who reside

in foreign countries. See Matter of A.M.C.-R., 306 Or. App. 360, 367, 473

P.3d 1167, 1170 (2020). A child-welfare agency making a fair and serious

attempt to reunify a family should use all feasible means available to

provide appropriate services to a foreign parent to achieve its goal. See

In re Oreoluwa O., 321 Conn. 523, 542, 139 A.3d 674, 685 (2016).

In this case, the record does not support a finding that language

barriers and distance made it impossible to reunite the mother with the

child. The mother spoke only Aketeko, a Mayan dialect. Lindsey McKee,

13
CL-2023-0899

a child-abuse and neglect investigator, testified that DHR had access to

a "state language line," which McKee described as

"the [Alabama Department of Human Resources]'s contracted
line for language services and they offer language services of
all kinds. They have dialects; they have Spanish and English;
and such and so forth, and then you call it, and you have to
give them your State i.d. number and then they assist you
with an interpreter 24/7."

On July 18, 2019, McKee used that service to communicate with the

father, who spoke Q'anjob'al, another Mayan dialect. Teresa Wilson,

another DHR social worker, testified that she had also used that service

to communicate with the father when he was in jail. No one testified that

DHR did not have access to Aketeko interpreters who could adequately

assist the mother with family-reunification services; in fact, DHR

arranged for an Aketeko interpreter to facilitate virtual visitations

between the mother and the child in 2022 and 2023.

Reasonable efforts at family reunification also were not impeded

because the mother resided in a small village in Guatemala. DHR

arranged visitations between the mother and the child, who was residing

in Morgan County, and individual therapy by a counselor, who was also

located in Alabama, through videoconferencing; the mother testified that

14
CL-2023-0899

she had traveled two hours from her home to access a computer to attend

the visits and the counseling sessions. According to a DHR witness, the

mother had missed only two visits due to religious considerations and,

she said, the mother had faithfully attended her therapy sessions until

the therapist retired. DHR arranged a home study through International

Social Services ("ISS") that was completed in October 2022.5 The record

contains no evidence indicating that DHR was unable to implement a

vital service to achieve family reunification because of the mother's

remoteness.

On the other hand, the record does support the mother's contention

that DHR failed to promptly undertake reasonable efforts to reunite her

with the child.

"Once [the Department of Human Resources] places a
child in foster care, it has an immediate duty to use
reasonable efforts to reunite the family, absent aggravating
circumstances. See Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-312. That duty
requires [the Department of Human Resources] to identify the
circumstances that led to removal of the child, to develop a
plan to ameliorate those circumstances, and to use reasonable
efforts to achieve that plan. See Montgomery Cty. Dep't of

5ISS offers assistance with locating and providing services to
parents abroad. As of the date of this decision, the relevant Web page
could be found at: https://www.iss-usa.org/our-services/services-for-
children/.
15
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Human Res. v. A.S.N., 206 So. 3d 661, 672 (Ala. Civ. App.
2016) (citing H.H. v. Baldwin Cty. Dep't of Human Res., 989
So. 2d 1094, 1105 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007) (opinion on return to
remand) (authored by Moore, J., with two judges concurring
in the result))."

H.B. v. Mobile Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 236 So. 3d 875, 882 (Ala. Civ.

App. 2017). In this case, DHR did not commence any efforts to reunite

the mother with the child until July 6, 2022, almost three years after the

child entered foster care.

The evidence in the record shows that, when the child was

summarily removed from the father's custody on July 18, 2019, DHR did

not know where the mother was. DHR interviewed the father, but he did

not provide DHR the mother's exact address. McKee talked with two

relatives of the child, who also failed to give her the mother's contact

information. DHR understood that the mother was residing somewhere

in Guatemala. DHR was obligated to use due diligence to locate the

mother. Due diligence

" ' " 'denotes a thorough, systematic investigation and an
inquiry conducted in good faith.' It includes searching not only
'standard avenues available to help locate a missing parent,'
but ' "specific ones most likely under the unique facts known
to the [agency], to yield [a parent's] address." ' " ' "

16
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In re J.R., 82 Cal. App. 5th 569, 588, 298 Cal. Rptr. 3d 500, 517 (2022)

(citations omitted). DHR did not use reasonably diligent efforts to locate

the mother.

When DHR summarily removed the child on July 18, 2019, the child

had a cell phone that he used to communicate with the mother. DHR

confiscated the cell phone, but it did not use the cell phone to obtain the

mother's cellular telephone number or to try to call her. DHR allowed

the cell phone to power down and to lock without obtaining the cell

phone's passcode. Although policy required DHR to contact the

Guatemalan Consulate to notify Guatemalan authorities that the child

had been taken into protective custody, DHR did not send the consulate

a letter until September 23, 2019, and, even then, DHR did not request

the mother's contact information. DHR also did not ask the consulate to

provide the mother's cellphone number to it, even after one of its

employees indicated that she had talked to the mother over the

telephone. 6 DHR also did not contact ISS between 2019 and 2022, despite

its policy to do so when a child can be placed in a foreign country. When

6DHR sent a request for the mother's contact information to the

consulate on May 26, 2020, but the consulate did not respond.
17
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United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement informed DHR in

January 2021 that it was deporting the father, DHR did not follow up to

request assistance with locating the mother.

After failing to obtain the mother's contact information, and, thus,

failing to use any efforts to reunite her with the child, DHR filed the

petition to terminate the mother's parental rights; however, DHR did not

serve the mother with the petition. On March 5, 2021, almost nine

months after the petition was filed, the juvenile court instructed DHR to

"make all active efforts to locate" the mother and to report on those

efforts. DHR never filed a report; instead, DHR moved to serve the

mother by publication, which the juvenile court allowed. In April 2021,

DHR published a notice of the termination proceedings, written entirely

in English, in a Guatemala City newspaper. The mother, who is

illiterate, did not receive actual notice of the termination proceedings

through the publication.

Meanwhile, the father, who had pleaded guilty to assault in the

third degree regarding the July 18, 2019, incident, and who had been

deported back to Guatemala in early 2021, returned to the mother's

village. Distraught that the child was not with him, the mother enlisted
18
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his assistance in locating the child. They forwarded legal documents in

the father's possession to a Guatemala City attorney, who, in turn,

contacted Dr. Glykeria Teji, an attorney in the United States. Dr. Teji

tried to locate the child through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a

part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services,

without success. Dr. Teji also contacted the office of the child's guardian

ad litem and the attorney for DHR to obtain information as to the

whereabouts of the child. Dr. Teji testified that she was unable to gather

any information about the child through those channels, although it

appears that she learned of the ongoing termination-of-parental-rights

proceedings.

Eventually, the mother secured legal representation through the

Southern Poverty Law Center, who first appeared for the mother in the

underlying proceedings in November 2021. After successfully moving the

juvenile court to set aside the original judgment terminating the mother's

parental rights, the mother's counsel, over DHR's objection, obtained an

order on April 1, 2022, allowing the mother to visit with the child and

arranged an individualized-service-plan ("ISP") meeting for July 6, 2022

-- the first step that DHR took to comply with its reasonable-efforts
19
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mandate. See E.W. v. Jefferson Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 872 So. 2d 167,

172 (Ala. Civ. App. 2003) (describing an ISP as the starting point in the

family-reunification process). By that point, DHR had instituted a

permanency plan calling for termination of parental rights with adoption

by the child's foster parent, who had assumed care of the child on July 2,

2021.7

After meeting with the mother, DHR changed the permanency plan

to include a "concurrent goal" of reuniting the child with her. Although

the ISP is intended to inform a parent of the conduct, conditions, or

circumstances that need to be corrected for a family to be reunited, see

E.W., supra, DHR did not present any evidence as to the barriers to

reunification that it identified in the ISP.8 A DHR social worker testified

7Due to being raised by foster parents in Alabama for close to three

years, the child no longer spoke Aketeko, and he referred to himself by
an American name. The mother called an expert witness, who testified
that DHR had not used best practices to promptly notify the mother of
the juvenile proceedings, to initiate family reunification efforts, and to
preserve the cultural identity of the child.

8DHR did not request that the mother pay child support or fault her

for failing to obtain employment to financially support the child. The
juvenile court nevertheless noted that the mother had not paid child
support for the benefit of the child after he and the father migrated to
Alabama. Section 12-15-319(a)(9) provides that, in termination-of-
20
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that she wanted the mother and the child to attend individual therapy

and family therapy, but it appears that the therapy was designed solely

to ease the process of renewing the mother-child relationship. The

mother accomplished all the goals established by DHR.

At trial, however, DHR social workers criticized the mother for

failing to separate from the father. After the father returned to

Guatemala, the mother rekindled her relationship with him, and they

conceived a fourth child. The mother testified that, within two weeks,

she separated from the father and that she had maintained that

separation to assure that she could regain custody of the child. However,

DHR social workers testified that, during virtual visits, the mother had

told the child that the father had been falsely accused of harming him

and that she had indicated that one of the child's sisters had been staying

with the father. The mother continued to reside on land owned by the

father's family, and she remained partially dependent on financial

parental-rights proceedings, a juvenile court shall consider the "[f]ailure
by the parents to provide for the material needs of the child or to pay a
reasonable portion of support of the child where the parent is able to do
so." DHR presented no evidence indicating that the mother was able to
provide material support for the child and that she had failed to do so.
21
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support from the father. Some questioning suggested that the father may

be staying in the mother's home because male clothes were kept there.

The mother did not have a sufficient explanation of what she would do if

the father came to the family home to interact with the child. Based on

that evidence, 9 the juvenile court determined that the mother lacked

appropriate protective capacity.10

As part of the reasonable-efforts mandate, before a juvenile court

can terminate parental rights on the ground that the parent has not

successfully rehabilitated, the juvenile court must first give the parent a

fair opportunity to rectify the barrier to family reunification.

"Our caselaw provides that DHR must identify the
conduct that led to the removal of the child, explain the
barriers it perceives as preventing a parent from obtaining
custody of a child, communicate its concerns to the parent,
formulate a plan reasonably designed to remove those

9The juvenile court also indicated that the mother lacked protective

capacity because she allowed the child to travel through unsafe
conditions to immigrate to the United States, but the record contains no
evidence regarding how the father and the child traveled or any of the
conditions they encountered.

10The juvenile court also criticized the living conditions in
Guatemala as compared to those in Alabama. "[T]erminating the
mother's parental rights requires more than proving that the custodians
can provide a better home for the child than the mother ...." D.H.E. v.
W.D., 330 So. 3d 506, 517 (Ala. Civ. App. 2020).
22
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obstacles so as to allow for family reunification, and assess
whether those barriers remain after reasonable rehabilitation
efforts have been exhausted."

B.L., 324 So. 3d at 836. Before trial, DHR never identified the mother's

alleged continuing relationship with the father as an impediment to her

reunification with the child, nor did it establish any means by which the

mother could strengthen her protective capacity, assure that the father

would be restrained from the child, or verify his absence from the family

home.

In H.H. v. Baldwin County Department of Human Resources, 989

So. 2d 1094 (Ala. Civ. App. 2007) (plurality opinion), this court held that,

in the absence of aggravating circumstances, DHR must make " 'a fair

and serious attempt to reunify a parent with a child prior to seeking to

terminate parental rights.' " 989 So. 2d at 1104 (quoting State ex rel.

A.C., 97 P.3d 706, 712 (Utah Ct. App. 2006)). The court held:

"The natural starting point in any fair and serious
attempt to rehabilitate the parent and to reunite the parent
with the child is identification of that characteristic, conduct,
or circumstance that renders the parent unfit or unable to
discharge his or her parental responsibilities to the child.
Once DHR identifies the source of parental unfitness, the
overarching goal of family reunification requires DHR to
communicate its concerns to the parent and to develop a
reasonable plan with the parent that is tailored toward the
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particular problem(s) preventing the parent from assuming a
proper parental role. DHR should use reasonable methods to
achieve its plan of removing or reducing the identified
obstacle(s) to family reunification 'as quickly and as safely as
possible.' Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-[312(b)]. Finally, at the
termination of any rehabilitation process, DHR should
determine the success of its efforts, using reasonable
evaluation tools."

989 So. 2d at 1105 (plurality opinion) (footnote omitted). This framework

has been cited in over a dozen cases and clearly and concisely apprises

DHR of the nature of its duties to act promptly and reasonably to reunite

families. See, e.g., K.H. v. Madison Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 384 So. 3d

641, 657 (Ala. Civ. App. 2023); M.H. v. Madison Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res.,

375 So. 3d 1270, 1278 (Ala. Civ. App. 2022); J.C. v. Madison Cnty. Dep't

of Hum. Res., 293 So. 3d 901, 910 (Ala. Civ. App. 2019); P.S. v. Jefferson

Cnty. Dep't of Hum. Res., 143 So. 3d 792, 798 (Ala. Civ. App. 2013). DHR

did not act timely or reasonably to complete any of the necessary steps to

assure reasonable efforts were expended before petitioning to terminate

the mother's parental rights.

Conclusion

Although the language and geographical factors did not make using

reasonable efforts impossible, the record is replete with evidence

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indicating that DHR failed to use reasonable efforts to reunite the mother

with the child. When DHR fails to use reasonable efforts, a judgment

terminating parental rights must be reversed. See T.B. v. Jefferson Cnty.

Dep't of Hum. Res., 369 So. 3d 158, 164 (Ala. Civ. App. 2022). Therefore,

we reverse the judgment terminating the mother's parental rights, and

we remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

Edwards, Hanson, Fridy, and Lewis, JJ., concur.

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