In the Interest of R.H., Minor Child

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
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No. 25-1486
Filed March 11, 2026
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In the Interest of R.H., Minor Child,
D.H., Father,
Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Marshall County,
The Honorable Paul G. Crawford, Judge.
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AFFIRMED
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Merrill C. Swartz of Swartz Law Firm, Marshalltown,
attorney for appellant father.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Lisa Jeanes, Assistant Attorney
General, attorneys for appellee State.

Mary Cowdrey of the State Public Defender’s Office, Marshalltown,
attorney and guardian ad litem for minor child.
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Considered without oral argument
by Ahlers, P.J., and Buller and Sandy, JJ.
Opinion by Buller, J.

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BULLER, Judge.

A father appeals the termination of his parental rights to a child born
in 2024. He claims the State failed to prove the child could not be safely
returned to his custody and the court should have granted him six more
months to achieve reunification. We affirm.

BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
The day after the child was born, the Iowa Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) received a report that the “parents were unable to
meet [the child’s] needs and the home was not suitable for a child.” After a
couple weeks of voluntary services, HHS applied to remove the child from
the home, observing the family’s apartment was “highly unsanitary,” with
food and dirt ground into the carpet, and cat feces and urine, dirty dishes,
and clutter throughout the home. When removing the child, HHS discovered
the parents “had not fed their newborn baby in nearly nine hours,” and the
child was dehydrated.

HHS requested—and the juvenile court ordered—the parents to clean
the home, complete a parenting course, complete substance-abuse and
mental-health evaluations, and follow all recommendations from the
evaluations. The parents lived in four different places in the ten months
between the child’s removal and the termination hearing. They were evicted
from the original apartment, lived with a friend for a time, and then moved
in with the mother’s family (whose house was not suitable for a child). Their
most recent home was a studio apartment with no crib for the child. It
appears almost all efforts at keeping their homes in acceptable condition fell
to the mother with little help from the father. The father provided
financially—paying for the apartment and limited extras—through social
security disability payments.

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The parents did not consistently attend parenting classes, which ended
due to their failure to participate. The father did not complete a substance-
abuse evaluation, saying he didn’t need it despite using marijuana regularly
to treat arthritis pain without a medical marijuana card. Although he claimed
to have stopped smoking marijuana at one point, the father continued to
purchase marijuana-derivative products from stores and tested positive for a
marijuana metabolite in a June drug test. In early 2025, he told workers he
had switched to vaping mushrooms. The father later admitted vaping a
mushroom cartridge before “almost every single visit [with the child] . . . and
that helps me to be able to function a little bit better,” to “loosen it up to
where I can move around a lot better.” The father also did not pursue a
mental-health evaluation or treatment, saying he did not need therapy.

The father’s attendance at visits was inconsistent, missing more than
half offered; the mother was the primary caregiver at all visits, with the father
only occasionally holding the child when encouraged by the mother. As the
family services provider summarized after a February visit, an hour into the
visit, “[the father] had not interacted with [the child] and had been playing
on his phone the entire time,” and when the child cried as the mother
prepared a bottle, he “did not attempt to hold her . . . or calm her.” At a visit
the week before the termination trial, the worker described the parents:
“Mother demonstrated consistent engagement and affection throughout
. . . . Father was largely disengaged, spending most of the visit on his
phone . . . .”

A few weeks after the termination trial, the child’s guardian ad litem
requested the court suspend parental visits because the father had vaped
mushrooms immediately before attempting to interact with the child and,

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when the case worker attempted to end the visit, the parents attempted to
block her in the home.

The court terminated the parents’ rights under Iowa Code
section 232.116(1)(h) (2025). The father appeals, and we review de novo. See
In re W.M., 957 N.W.2d 305, 312 (Iowa 2021).

DISCUSSION
The father asserts the State failed to prove the ground for termination
and that the court should have granted him an additional six months to
achieve reunification with the child because “the parents are young and they
have learning to do in being parents.” We address each claim in turn.

First, the father contests the ground for termination, arguing the State
failed to prove the final element—that the child could not safely be returned
home. See Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(h)(4). In its ruling, the court noted the
parents’ difficulties maintaining a clean environment even with several
moves and many months of time. And the court observed that, on the
occasions the apartment was clean, the mother missed appointments and
“pulled all nighters or nearly all nighters” in advance of the inspection, but
the court did “not see father as picking up the slack.” The child is crawling
and trying to stand, making a “cluttered and dirty” floor a safety concern.
The court also discussed the cleanliness of the home in relation to unresolved
mental-health or substance-abuse problems, neither of which the father had
even attended an evaluation for.

The father argues that, because “the house was clean when [HHS]
inspected the mother and father’s home,” the reason for the court’s
involvement no longer exists. This argument ignores testimony from a
caseworker that in one instance when the mother forgot HHS was coming,

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“the house was not clean,” which combined with multiple “all nighters”
indicates the apartment rapidly devolves into clutter and filth when not under
direct observation by HHS. We are also concerned with the father’s
statement he used to clean “nonstop” as a teen, but due to problems with
friends and his pain, he “just like shut down with it.” This suggests the
father’s mental health is a barrier to maintaining a safe home for the child,
particularly given the father’s refusal to participate in a mental-health
evaluation or treatment. More, his paucity of effort helping the mother
maintain the home also indicates he either does not understand the child’s
needs or does not care about the child’s safety and development. See In re
M.M., No. 17-1124, 2017 WL 4051009, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Sep. 13, 2017)
(citing parents’ lack of participation and progress and “inability or
unwillingness to understand and provide for the child’s basic needs for a
nurturing, stable and safe home”).

In short, the father has not participated in any services or taken any
steps to act as a parent or establish a home the child can safely return to.
Rather, the efforts made to care for the child, prepare the home, and become
a safe parent were all the mother’s, with the father rarely taking part. The
father has not demonstrated the ability or interest in taking on the duties
encompassed in parenting. See In re J.K.N., No. 08-2069, 2009 WL 1677000,
at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. June 17, 2009). On this record, the State established by
clear and convincing evidence the child could not safely be returned to the
father’s custody. See Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(h)(4).

The father next asserts the juvenile court should have granted a six-
month extension in the case. To grant an extension, the court would have had
to “enumerate the specific factors, conditions, or expected behavioral
changes which comprise the basis for the determination that the need for

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removal of the child from the child’s home will no longer exist at the end of
the additional six-month period.” Id. § 232.104(2)(b). In doing so, courts
look to the parent’s past performance. In re K.K., No. 18-0943, 2018
WL 3650376, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 1, 2018). On this question, the
juvenile court ruled:
Father’s past performance has been minimal and poor. Court can
find no evidence that he has ever made a bottle for [the child], given her a
bottle, or changed her diaper. Father is willing to expend more energy
rushing to the vape store than putting down his phone and meaningfully
interacting with his daughter during a visit. The Court sees no ray of hope
that father can make the necessary “improvement” to merit giving him
another six months to try.

We similarly see no evidence in this record of the father seeking
contact with the child, comforting the child, or doing any parenting work
during visits. He has not obtained either the substance-abuse or mental-
health evaluation and treatment ordered by the court, and he argued he did
not know he was supposed to obtain them despite prior court hearings, court
orders, and HHS reports recommending exactly that. We see no basis for
determining the father will be able to care for the child in a safe, stable
environment in the next six months.

AFFIRMED.

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