Judge Lillian Wan
Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) sought to terminate the agency’s obligation to exercise reasonable efforts in this child protective suit. ACS filed an Article 10 petition against mother on behalf of the child alleging mother failed to provide adequate guardianship and supervision as she had prior neglect findings regarding the child’s siblings, and mother’s parental rights were terminated against those children. ACS’s petition further alleged mother failed to engage in and benefit from services sufficiently to ameliorate the risk to the child’s siblings, resulting in the child being neglected or in danger of same. The court noted mother was re-arrested in July 2013 and incarcerated. It also found that while she completed several sessions of a “relationship workshop” there was no information what such workshop entailed. Further, the court stated mother acknowledged she had no contact with ACS caseworkers for several months after the subject child’s birth, nor was there evidence of mother’s release date and/or if mother will request further services from ACS upon her release. It ruled mother failed to establish her burden under Family Court Act §1039, granting ACS’s motion no longer requiring it to make reasonable efforts to safely return the child home.
