Peo in Interest of JS

24CA1726 Peo in Interest of JS 05-08-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 24CA1726
Adams County District Court No. 22JV33
Honorable Caryn A. Datz, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of J.S., a Child,

and Concerning K.B.,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division VII
Opinion by JUDGE MOULTRIE
Lipinsky and Johnson, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced May 8, 2025

Heidi Miller, County Attorney, Lisa Vigil, Assistant County Attorney,
Westminster, Colorado, for Appellee

Laura Dunbar, Guardian Ad Litem

Beth Padilla, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Durango, Colorado, for
Appellant
¶1 In this dependency and neglect action, K.B. (mother) appeals

the judgment terminating her parent-child legal relationship with

J.S. (the child). We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 The Adams County Human Services Department received a

series of referrals about the then-one-year-old child based on

concerns about mother’s aggressiveness and domestic violence

against her partner. The Department opened a voluntary case and

provided services to mother to keep the child in mother’s home.

The Department filed a petition in dependency or neglect after

mother only minimally engaged in the voluntary services.

¶3 The juvenile court adjudicated the child dependent and

neglected and adopted a treatment plan for mother. The child

remained at home with mother for more than a year. But the

juvenile court then granted temporary custody of the child to the

Department after a major domestic violence incident occurred

between mother and her partner in the child’s presence.

¶4 The Department later moved to terminate mother’s parental

rights. Two and a half years after the petition was filed and nearly

two years after the juvenile court adopted the treatment plan, the

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court terminated mother’s parental rights, following a four-day

contested hearing.

II. Fit within a Reasonable Time

¶5 Mother first contends that she substantially complied with her

treatment plan and needed more time to come into full compliance.

Construing her argument as a claim that the juvenile court erred by

finding that she could not become fit within a reasonable time, we

discern no basis for reversal.

A. Standard of Review and Applicable Law

¶6 Whether a juvenile court properly terminated parental rights

presents a mixed question of fact and law because it involves

application of the termination statute to evidentiary facts. People in

Interest of A.M. v. T.M., 2021 CO 14, ¶ 15. “We review the juvenile

court’s findings of evidentiary fact — the raw, historical data

underlying the controversy — for clear error and accept them if they

have record support.” People in Interest of S.R.N.J-S., 2020 COA 12,

¶ 10. But we review de novo the juvenile court’s legal conclusions

based on those facts. See id. It is for the juvenile court, as the trier

of fact, to determine the sufficiency, probative effect, and weight of

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the evidence and to assess witness credibility. People in Interest of

A.J.L., 243 P.3d 244, 249-50 (Colo. 2010).

¶7 To terminate the parent-child legal relationship, clear and

convincing evidence must establish, among other things, that the

parent is unfit and that the conduct or condition rendering the

parent unfit is unlikely to change within a reasonable time. § 19-3-

604(1)(c)(II)-(III), C.R.S. 2024.

¶8 An unfit parent is one whose conduct or condition renders

them “unable or unwilling to give the child reasonable parental care

to include, at a minimum, nurturing and safe parenting sufficiently

adequate to meet the child’s physical, emotional, and mental health

needs and conditions.” § 19-3-604(2). A parent need not comply

absolutely with every provision of a treatment plan, but partial or

even substantial compliance may not result in a successful plan

that renders a parent fit. People in Interest of D.L.C., 70 P.3d 584,

588 (Colo. App. 2003).

¶9 “In determining whether a parent’s conduct or condition is

likely to change within a reasonable time, the court may consider

whether any change has occurred during the proceeding, the

parent’s social history, and the chronic or long-term nature of the

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parent’s conduct or condition.” People in Interest of S.Z.S., 2022

COA 133, ¶ 24.

¶ 10 What constitutes a reasonable time is fact specific and must

be determined by considering the particular physical, mental, and

emotional conditions and needs of the child. Id. at ¶ 25. A

“reasonable time” is not an indefinite time. Id. And even when a

parent has made progress on a treatment plan, the court is not

required to give the parent additional time to comply. See id. at ¶¶

24-25. In addition, when, as here, the child is under six years old

at the time of the filing of the petition, the action is subject to the

expedited permanency planning provisions and the court must

place the child in a permanent home as expeditiously as possible.

§§ 19-1-102(1.6), 19-1-123, C.R.S. 2024.

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B. Analysis

¶ 11 Mother’s treatment plan required her to address her mental

health and trauma history, meet the child’s needs, and address

domestic violence concerns.1

¶ 12 The juvenile court found that mother made some progress in

meeting her treatment plan goals. In particular, the court

commended mother for improving her communication skills,

improving her ability to manage her emotions, maintaining

employment for more than a year, obtaining a driver’s license and

vehicle, completing probation, demonstrating sobriety, and

ensuring that her own basic needs were being met.

1. Mother’s Mental Health

¶ 13 The juvenile court found that mother was in partial

compliance with her mental health goal. The court found, with

record support, that mother improved her engagement and coping

skills in therapy. But the court found that, despite mother’s

1 Although the court amended mother’s treatment plan to include a

requirement that she complete an assessment with the
Department’s internal treatment team and follow recommendations,
the court found that this amendment was rendered moot by the
parties’ later agreement to remove it from the treatment plan.

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participation in multiple services, she continued to demonstrate

emotional dysregulation that negatively impacted the child.

¶ 14 The record supports this finding. Mother’s individual

therapist testified that mother had been attending services for a

year and a half. In that time, mother’s overall treatment goals

remained the same. The therapist opined that mother’s

inconsistent attendance and lack of follow through on assignments

between sessions negatively impacted her progress in treatment.

The therapist expressed concern about mother’s inability to

emotionally regulate herself or manage her anger, especially in front

of the child. Mother’s therapist opined that, before mother would

be able to safely parent the child, she would need to more

consistently attend therapy, complete homework assignments, learn

skills to handle the child’s emotional dysregulation, complete tasks

and use her skills with less or no prompting from a professional,

reduce her own emotional dysregulation, understand the child’s

neglect and trauma, and acknowledge her responsibility for that

neglect and trauma. The therapist opined that mother needed “a

significant amount of time” in individual therapy to address these

concerns, and that mother was just “at the beginning stages” of

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accepting responsibility for the neglect and trauma the child

experienced in her care.

¶ 15 The family time coach testified that she talked with mother “all

the time about regulating” but continued to have concerns about

mother’s emotional dysregulation during family time. The coach

frequently talked with mother about the importance of not

displaying anger in front of the child and not being distracted by

things happening outside of family time. The coach talked with

mother about the negative impact her dysregulation had on her

engagement with the child. Despite this sustained coaching, the

parenting time coach described instances when mother came to

family time “crying and yelling,” or became dysregulated during

family time when the child did not want to receive physical affection

or do what mother wanted. The family time coach testified that it

sometimes took mother “a significant amount of time to calm down”

during family time. The family time coach testified that she had

never seen mother use any coping skill other than leaving the room.

The coach called the caseworker to help deescalate mother several

times.

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¶ 16 The coach testified that, when mother was upset, it was “very

noticeable,” and the child became anxious, as well. When mother

was dysregulated during family time, she was unable to read the

child’s cues or respond to him appropriately. As a result of

mother’s dysregulation, the child became dysregulated as well,

yelling “no,” moving quickly from one activity to another, or pushing

mother away.

2. Meeting the Child’s Needs

¶ 17 The juvenile court found, with record support, that the child

had “significant special needs that require great care and attention.”

Several witnesses testified that the child demonstrated significant

developmental delays while in mother’s care. When the case

opened, the child was more than a year old and was not babbling or

verbalizing, demonstrated a flat affect, and was not able to sit up,

crawl, or move around. At the time of the termination hearing, the

child was three-and-a-half years old. He was diagnosed with a

trauma disorder and a global developmental delay. He was

receiving occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech language

therapy, and play therapy for social-emotional concerns. The child

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also received special education services due to a developmental

delay disability.

¶ 18 The juvenile court found that, although mother made

“substantial progress” in meeting her own needs, she had not

successfully completed this objective of her treatment plan because

of “her inability to incorporate the parenting coaching and

therapeutic skills into safe and protective parenting to meet [the

child]’s physical and emotional needs.” The court found that “after

significant therapeutic intervention [mother] cannot adequately read

[the child]’s cues and provide for his emotional and psychological

needs.”

¶ 19 In so finding, the juvenile court found that mother did not

follow through with referrals from the child’s pediatrician for early

childhood intervention or from the Department for an in-home

nursing program, which would have helped her learn about and

support the child’s complex needs. The court found that mother

failed to engage appropriately in the child’s in-home therapies when

he was in her care, which resulted in the child’s discharge from

occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech-language

therapy services. The court found that mother was unable to read

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the child’s cues, “lacked connectivity” with the child, and had yet to

integrate any of the child’s therapeutic needs into her family time

with him.

¶ 20 The record supports these findings. Mother testified that

before the Department was involved, the child’s pediatrician

expressed concerns about the child’s delayed development and

made two referrals for developmental evaluations with which

mother did not follow through. Mother testified that, after the

Department’s involvement, the child received therapies in her home,

but they were discontinued because mother missed and

rescheduled appointments. The caseworker testified that the child’s

providers asked mother to actively participate in sessions at

mother’s home and to engage in homework tasks with the child, but

she failed to do so. The caseworker testified that the child’s

therapists reached out to her to express concerns about mother’s

lack of engagement impacting the child’s progress in his

developmental therapies.

¶ 21 After the child was removed from mother’s care, a parenting

coach facilitated family time. When the child was re-enrolled in

therapies, mother received weekly updates about the child’s

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therapeutic needs. The parenting time coach worked with mother

on the therapists’ recommendations and hosted the child’s

therapists during family time so mother could learn more about the

child’s therapeutic needs. Mother and the coach also developed

goals for parenting coaching, including reading and responding to

the child’s cues, putting the child’s needs first, creating and

implementing a schedule for family time, developing basic parenting

skills, and engaging with the child. The coach testified that mother

had not improved in reading and responding to the child’s cues,

putting the child’s needs first during family time, regulating in front

of the child, maintaining a schedule for the child during the six-

hour visits, implementing strategies from the child’s therapies, or

improving in her basic parenting skills.

¶ 22 An expert in infant mental health, trauma and attachment

(trauma and attachment expert) testified that, based on four

observations of mother with the child, she had concerns about

mother’s ability to meet the child’s basic and special needs. The

expert testified that mother was inconsistent in her engagement

with the child during family time. The expert expressed concerns

about mother’s struggle to be receptive to the child’s cues and

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inability to tolerate stress or emotionally regulate during family

time. The expert described an “indiscriminate attachment” between

the child and mother, and opined that it was “hard to tell if [the

child] relies on her at all.”

3. Addressing Domestic Violence

¶ 23 The juvenile court found that mother partially complied with

the objective requiring her to address domestic violence concerns.

The court acknowledged that mother attended domestic violence

offender treatment and completed probation for her criminal

domestic violence charges. However, the court found that mother

did not successfully integrate the treatment she received and

continued to display aggression after she completed treatment.

¶ 24 The record supports these findings. The caseworker testified

that mother completed domestic violence treatment and dialectical

behavioral therapy and was successfully discharged from probation.

However, the caseworker also testified that she had ongoing

concerns about mother’s violent outbursts in the home after mother

completed treatment. One such incident between mother and her

boyfriend resulted in the removal of the child from mother’s home.

Another incident, which the family time coach described in detail

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during her testimony, resulted in a restriction of mother’s family

time away from her home. The trauma and attachment expert

opined that the child’s night terrors, which started after the

incident, were representative of trauma he experienced during that

event.

4. Mother’s Fitness

¶ 25 Given these findings, the court found that, under a totality of

the circumstances, mother made “notable and commendable

progress in addressing her mental health and housing stability,”

but that “the overall picture of compliance remains insufficient.”

The court found that mother had not successfully completed the

treatment plan because the same issues addressed in the treatment

plan persisted and “significant child protection concerns still exist.”

¶ 26 The court found that mother was unfit and was unlikely to

become fit within a reasonable time. In so doing, the court

considered the lack of change during the case and the length of

time mother would need to address her own trauma. The court also

considered mother’s prior dependency and neglect case, which

involved a different child, in which mother failed to address similar

concerns; that case ended in the termination of mother’s parental

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rights. And, importantly, the court considered the child’s special

needs, significant trauma, and “troubling responses” to mother

around family time. The juvenile court found that the child’s global

developmental delay manifested in “unique and challenging

therapeutic needs that require vigilant care and constant attention,”

and that any “further delay would not serve the child’s best

interests, because a substantial and unreasonable amount of time

would be needed for [mother] to become fit.” The court noted that

the case had been open for two and a half years and that the

treatment plan had been in place for nearly two years. The court

found that “a substantial and unreasonable amount of time would

be needed for mother to become fit.”

¶ 27 The record supports these findings.

¶ 28 Both the caseworker and the family time coach testified that

mother had not made substantial progress in her understanding of

the child’s needs or her ability to meet them. The caseworker

testified that many services were provided to mother both in and

outside of her home, some multiple times, but that mother did not

successfully implement what she learned. The family time coach

and the caseworker testified that, despite receiving “intense

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parenting coaching” after the child’s removal, there had not been

significant changes in mother’s ability to provide basic parenting,

read the child’s cues, or provide for the child’s needs.

¶ 29 Several witnesses testified that mother would need to address

her own trauma and emotional regulation before beginning to repair

the relationship with the child, but mother testified that she was

not working on her own trauma in individual therapy yet and “still

[had] work to do” on emotional regulation. The court found

mother’s therapist credible in her assessment that “significant time”

would be required for mother to fully achieve her individual mental

health goals.

¶ 30 The caseworker, an expert in social work with an emphasis in

child protection, opined that mother could not address the child

protection concerns within a reasonable period of time. The

caseworker acknowledged that a reasonable time could be longer for

mother than for some others, but she opined that the two and a

half years that mother had been working with the Department was

a reasonable time for mother to address the Department’s concerns.

¶ 31 Because the record supports the juvenile court’s findings, we

will not disturb them on appeal.

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¶ 32 As part of her argument, mother correctly asserts that

expedited permanency guidelines do not have a twelve-month

deadline for permanency. See § 19-1-102(1.6). But mother does

not explain, and we cannot discern, how this impacts the court’s

determination that she could not become fit within a reasonable

period of time. Although the court noted that the matter fell under

expedited permanency guidelines to place the child in a permanent

home “as expeditiously as possible,” the court’s findings of fact and

conclusions of law are appropriately centered on this child and his

unique needs and circumstances. Nothing in the termination

judgment suggests that the time that the child had been in out of

home placement was a determining factor in the court’s decision to

terminate mother’s parental rights.

III. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

¶ 33 Mother next contends that she was entitled to a “critical

accommodation” — “additional time to benefit from the treatment

plan.” Mother does not suggest that the services provided by the

Department were inappropriate or did not adequately meet her

needs. Rather, mother asserts that she should have been afforded

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more time to participate in those services as a reasonable

accommodation under the ADA.

¶ 34 When a parent has a qualifying disability, the juvenile court

and the Department have an affirmative duty to make reasonable

accommodations for that parent. People in Interest of S.K., 2019

COA 36, ¶¶ 22, 25, 34; see 42 U.S.C. § 12102 (defining “disability”

under the ADA); see also 42 U.S.C. § 12131(2) (defining “qualified

individual” under the ADA); see also 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(b)(7) (2024)

(directing public entities to make “reasonable modifications” to

avoid discrimination on the basis of disability). A parent is

responsible for disclosing to the Department and the juvenile court

information regarding a disability and any reasonable

accommodations that are needed to address the disability. See

S.Z.S., ¶ 16. A department can accommodate, and the juvenile

court can address, only disabilities that are known to them. S.K., ¶

22. What constitutes a reasonable accommodation varies from case

to case based on the child’s health and safety needs, the nature of

the parent’s disability, and the available resources. Id. at ¶ 39.

¶ 35 In this case, the juvenile court ordered, and mother completed,

a psychological evaluation. Mother filed the evaluation with a

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“Motion for Application of the ADA and Accommodations Associated

with her Treatment Plan.” Mother asked the juvenile court to “find

that accommodations as identified by the evaluator . . . are

necessary for mother to access services, and that her treatment

plan be amended accordingly.” The parties then filed a stipulation,

at the court’s request, agreeing that “the recommended

accommodations are appropriate.” The psychological report states

that “providers should consider how they are providing [mother]

with documents, psychoeducation, and interventions. [Mother] will

benefit from taking treatment slowly and at a pace she feels

comfortable with.”

¶ 36 There is a meaningful distinction between this

recommendation, directed at mother’s service providers, and

mother’s appellate assertion that the court should have given her

more time to work towards reunification. Mother never requested

the accommodation she raises now; the court therefore never

determined if additional time to work on her treatment plan was a

reasonable accommodation under the ADA. There are, therefore, no

findings on this matter for us to review. People in Interest of T.E.R.,

2013 COA 73, ¶ 30 (generally, issues not raised in the trial court

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will not be considered on appeal); see also People v. Ujaama, 2012

COA 36, ¶ 37 (An issue is unpreserved for review when, “among

other things, (1) no objection or request was made in the trial court;

or (2) an objection or request was made in the trial court, but on

grounds different from those raised on appeal.”) (citations omitted).

¶ 37 In any event, as detailed above, the court determined that

giving mother additional time to become fit would not be reasonable

given the child’s high needs and mother’s lack of progress in

addressing the child protection concerns. See S.K., ¶¶ 25, 37 (the

ADA does not require the juvenile court to indefinitely extend a

parent’s opportunity to participate in rehabilitative services; rather,

the court may terminate parental rights if a parent is unable to

meet her child’s needs after reasonable accommodation).

¶ 38 We therefore discern no basis for reversal.

IV. Disposition

¶ 39 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE LIPINSKY and JUDGE JOHNSON concur.

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