A reasonable services finding was reversed where the Department did little to secure a psychotropic medication evaluation recommended for father in a psych evaluation. After the minors were removed from father, a psychological evaluation recommended that reunification services offered to him would have to include a medication evaluation. Although at first father said he would not take medication, he did indicate a willingness to comply with the recommendations of the psychological evaluation. The Department’s only attempt to secure such a pharmacological evaluation was to send father to a public mental health clinic. The clinic found that father did not meet its criteria for treatment and declined to undertake the evaluation. The Department made no further attempts to secure an evaluation, nor did it demonstrate that father would not have been able to parent the minor if he had been on appropriate medication. The appellate court reversed the lower court’s order terminating father’s reunification services, finding that the reasonable services finding could not be sustained.
Case Summaries