Peo in Interest of AKF

25CA1234 Peo in Interest of AKF 11-20-2025

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 25CA1234
City and County of Denver Juvenile Court No. 23JV30948
Honorable Lisa Gomez, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Appellee,

In the Interest of A.K.F., a Child,

and Concerning T.R.F.,

Appellant.

JUDGMENT AFFIRMED

Division II
Opinion by JUDGE MEIRINK
Fox and Brown, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e)
Announced November 20, 2025

Miko Brown, City Attorney, Amy J. Packer, Assistant City Attorney, Denver,
Colorado, for Appellee

Debra W. Dodd, Guardian Ad Litem

Patrick R. Henson, Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Chelsea A. Carr,
Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Appellant
¶1 In this dependency and neglect proceeding, T.R.F. (mother)

appeals the judgment terminating her parent-child legal

relationship with A.K.F. (the child). We affirm.

I. Background

¶2 In November 2023, the Denver County Department of Human

Services filed a petition in dependency or neglect concerning the

then-six-month-old child. Before the filing, mother was found

unresponsive in her car, while the child was laying upside down

and unrestrained in front of her. The Department alleged concerns

about mother’s substance use and involvement with the criminal

justice system.

¶3 The juvenile court granted the Department temporary legal

custody of the child, and he was placed in foster care. Thereafter,

mother admitted to the allegations in the petition, and the court

adjudicated the child dependent or neglected. The court adopted a

treatment plan that required mother to maintain contact with the

caseworker; develop and demonstrate parental protective capacity;

address domestic violence concerns; and address substance use

issues.

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

rights. Mother did not appear at the two-day termination hearing.

At the hearing, the caseworker testified that mother had not

complied with any part of her treatment plan. After considering the

evidence, the juvenile court granted the Department’s termination

motion.

II. Less Drastic Alternatives

¶5 Mother contends that the juvenile court erred by finding that

there were no less drastic alternatives to termination. Specifically,

she argues that the child’s maternal grandmother was willing and

able to accept an allocation of parental responsibilities (APR) for the

child, and thus, there was a viable less drastic alternative to

termination. We discern no error.

A. Applicable Law and Standard of Review

¶6 A juvenile court may terminate parental rights if it finds, by

clear and convincing evidence, that (1) the child was adjudicated

dependent or neglected; (2) the parent has not complied with an

appropriate, court-approved treatment plan or the plan has not

been successful; (3) the parent is unfit; and (4) the parent’s conduct

or condition is unlikely to change in a reasonable time.

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§ 19-3-604(1)(c), C.R.S. 2025. Consideration and elimination of less

drastic alternatives is implicit in the statutory criteria for

termination. People in Interest of A.M. v. T.M., 2021 CO 14, ¶ 40.

¶7 In analyzing less drastic alternatives, the juvenile court must

give primary consideration to the child’s physical, mental, and

emotional conditions and needs. People in Interest of Z.M., 2020

COA 3M, ¶ 29. For a less drastic alternative to be viable, it must do

more than “adequate[ly]” meet a child’s needs; rather, the less

drastic alternative must be the “best” option for the child. A.M.,

¶ 27. Long-term or permanent placement with a family member,

short of termination, may not be in a child’s best interests if it does

not provide the permanence assured by adoption or otherwise meet

that child’s needs. People in Interest of A.R., 2012 COA 195M, ¶ 41.

¶8 “We review a juvenile court’s less drastic alternatives findings

for clear error.” People in Interest of E.W., 2022 COA 12, ¶ 34.

Accordingly, when a juvenile court considers a less drastic

alternative but instead finds that termination is in a child’s best

interests, we are bound to affirm the court’s decision so long as the

record supports its findings. People in Interest of B.H., 2021 CO 39,

¶ 80.

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B. Analysis

¶9 The juvenile court considered whether an APR to grandmother

was a viable less drastic alternative to termination but ultimately

concluded that it was not. Specifically, the court found that while it

had “no doubt” that grandmother loved the child, the child “needed

permanence now,” and grandmother could not provide that because

she was not available for placement or an APR at the time of the

hearing.

¶ 10 More specifically, the juvenile court found that in order to

place the child with grandmother, an Interstate Compact on the

Placement of Children (ICPC) home study was required because

grandmother lived in Texas. However, the court found that an

“ICPC [home study] cannot be started without a physical address”

and that the Department did not have an address to put on the

forms because grandmother was living with her oldest daughter

who was unwilling to be a part of the ICPC process. Moreover, the

court noted that it had been fifteen months since grandmother

became aware of this case but that she was still living “in the same

place . . . with the same people, who do not want to be involved in

this case.” Thus, although the court expressed some hesitation

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about “possibly severing generational ties” to the child’s family, it

found that it would not be in the child’s best interests to “wait . . .

an additional unknown time period [to] figure out possible

placement.” Based on those findings, the court determined that

there were no viable less drastic alternatives to termination and

that termination was in the child’s best interests.

¶ 11 The record supports the juvenile court’s findings. The

caseworker, who testified as an expert in social casework with an

emphasis in child protection, opined that the child needed

permanency “sooner rather than later” because he was very young

and at a developmental stage in which he was forming important

attachments. The caseworker also testified that the child’s age was

a “very large factor” in her belief that termination was in the child’s

best interests because he had spent the majority of his life in foster

care and needed a sense of security.

¶ 12 Moreover, the caseworker testified that the Department

“heavily considered” grandmother as a placement option. However,

when the caseworker spoke to grandmother in March 2024,

grandmother stated that she was unable to be a placement option.

Nonetheless, about three months later, grandmother told the

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caseworker that she wanted to be considered as a placement option

but that she would need to move first because she was living with

her oldest daughter who did not want to be involved in the case.

Although the caseworker told grandmother that she did not need to

move for the Department to start an ICPC home study,

grandmother told the caseworker that “her current housing

situation wasn’t a situation that she wanted to bring [the child]

into.” Thus, the caseworker testified that grandmother wanted to

be considered as a placement option only “once she got new

housing.”

¶ 13 Nonetheless, the caseworker testified that all the ICPC

paperwork was completed, and the Department was just waiting on

grandmother to move and provide her new address. For the next

eleven months, the caseworker regularly contacted grandmother to

check on the status of the move, and grandmother continually told

the caseworker that she would be moving in “six to eight weeks” or

by the end of the month. At one point, grandmother even told the

caseworker that she was going to move to Colorado, and the

caseworker gathered all the necessary information to expedite the

required fingerprinting and background check upon grandmother’s

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arrival. However, by the time of the termination hearing,

grandmother had not moved or notified the caseworker that she

was available for placement of the child with her. In fact, at the

hearing, grandmother testified that her living situation was the

same as it was when she first found out about the case in March

2024 and that she did not “have a place for [the child] to go.” Thus,

we discern no clear error in the court’s finding that there were no

viable less drastic alternatives to termination.

¶ 14 We reject mother’s argument that the juvenile court failed to

comply with sections 19-3-403(3.6)(a)(V) and 19-3-508(5)(b)(II),

C.R.S. 2025, which require the court to give preference to

placement with kin or a child’s sibling. To an extent, this argument

conflates statutory placement preference requirements with less

drastic alternatives. See A.R., ¶ 44 (while statutory placement

preferences are relevant when determining which among a choice of

placements is in the child’s best interest, a less drastic alternative

analysis considers whether any placement, short of termination,

would be in the child’s best interest). Even so, the record does not

indicate that the juvenile court failed to comply with the statutory

placement preference requirements.

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¶ 15 Rather, section 19-3-403(3.6)(a)(V) requires the juvenile court

to give preference to placement with kin “who is capable, willing,

and available for care.” (Emphasis added.) And section 19-3-

508(5)(b)(II) requires the court to presume that placement with a

child’s sibling is in the child’s best interests only “[i]f the county

department locates a capable, willing, and available joint

placement” for siblings. (Emphasis added.) Here, although

grandmother had custody of the child’s sibling and stated that she

wanted to be considered as a placement option, grandmother

specifically testified that she was not available for placement of the

child because of her living situation. Thus, we disagree with

mother’s assertion that the court violated statutory placement

preference requirements by determining that an APR to

grandmother was not a viable less drastic alternative to

termination.

¶ 16 We also reject mother’s argument that the juvenile court’s less

drastic alternatives determination was erroneous because the

Department failed to “identify relatives and kin and to engage the

relatives and kin in providing support for the child,” as required

under section 19-3-702(5)(e), C.R.S. 2025. To start, section 19-3-

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702(5)(e) deals with a department’s duty to, at each permanency

planning hearing, “provide the court with a written or verbal report”

specifying what efforts have been made to identify a permanent

home for a child. Id. True, as part of that duty, a department must

include its ongoing efforts to identify and engage kin. Id. And a

department must “explain why any identified relatives or kin have

been ruled out for placement.” Id. But mother does not point us to

any deficiencies in the Department’s reporting of its ongoing efforts

to identify kin or its explanations of why any kin had been ruled out

as placement. Rather, mother seems to argue that the Department

failed to sufficiently identify and investigate relatives or kin as

placement options for the child. And, if that is what mother argues,

then we disagree.

¶ 17 Specifically, “[a]lthough the department must evaluate a

reasonable number of persons identified by the parents as possible

placement alternatives, it has no obligation to independently

identify and evaluate other possible placement alternatives.” People

in Interest of Z.P., 167 P.3d 211, 215 (Colo. App. 2007). Here, as

noted by the juvenile court, despite its order for mother to fill out

and provide a family resource affidavit, she never did. Moreover,

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the caseworker testified that the only relative mother ever

mentioned as a possible placement option was grandmother. Still,

according to the caseworker, the Department ran a search that

“pulls information about both parents’ family” to try to identify

possible placement options. However, the search only revealed

grandmother as a possible placement option. And, as noted, the

caseworker consistently contacted grandmother throughout the

case and “heavily considered” her as a placement option.

Accordingly, we disagree with mother’s assertion that the

Department failed to adequately investigate family members and kin

for placement, especially considering that no evidence suggests that

mother provided any specific information about any relatives except

for grandmother.

¶ 18 Last, we reject mother’s argument that the Department “never

made reasonable efforts to explore family/kinship placement

options or assist . . . grandmother in obtaining a larger home to

help her become a placement for [the child].” The Department and

guardian ad litem argue that we should decline to address this

argument because it is undeveloped. Indeed, in mother’s opening

brief, the entirety of this argument is one sentence. See People in

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Interest of D.B-J., 89 P.3d 530, 531 (Colo. App. 2004) (declining to

address an appellate argument presented without supporting facts,

specific argument, or specific supporting authorities). However,

even if we address it, the argument fails.

¶ 19 First, the record shows that the Department made efforts to

identify relative or kin placements for the child, but it was only able

to identify grandmother, and grandmother was not available.

Second, we are unaware of any legal authority requiring a

department to provide housing or income assistance to extended

family as part of its obligation to make reasonable efforts. And

mother points us to none.

¶ 20 In sum, we conclude that the juvenile court properly

considered and rejected an APR to grandmother based on the

child’s immediate need for permanency and grandmother’s ongoing

lack of availability as an immediate permanent placement option.

Because the record supports the juvenile court’s finding that

termination was in the child’s best interests, reversal is not

warranted. See B.H., ¶ 80.

III. Disposition

¶ 21 The judgment is affirmed.

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JUDGE FOX and JUDGE BROWN concur.

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