Background
H.R. (born 2008) and A.R. (born 2010) lived with both parents in Texas until 2019, when father was hospitalized for mental health reasons and the family separated. Mother and the children eventually relocated to Vermont. Father has had no in-person contact with the children since 2019. In May 2022, the children were taken into emergency custody by the Vermont Department for Children and Families (DCF) after mother — who had stopped taking medication for her bipolar disorder — set fire to the family home during a physical and verbal altercation with the children. The children were adjudicated as children in need of care or supervision (CHINS) approximately five months later.
DCF developed a disposition case plan calling for reunification with mother only, but it included action steps for father: completing a domestic-violence intervention program, undergoing a substance-use assessment, articulating the impact of his violence on the children, and signing releases allowing DCF to communicate with his treatment providers. DCF also submitted an Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC) home study request to Texas, but it was denied because father failed to complete a required background check. A first petition to terminate parental rights was denied. DCF filed a second termination petition in August 2025.
At the termination hearing, both children testified. H.R. (age 17) and A.R. (age 15) described a chaotic household in Texas marked by daily parental drinking, father’s physical aggression, screaming, throwing objects, belt discipline, and handcuffing the children to furniture and to each other. Both children stated they had virtually no contact with father since leaving Texas and that they did not want to reunify with him. The children had lived with the same foster family for approximately three years and were described as flourishing, engaged in school, and emotionally stable. DCF workers testified that father had been largely unresponsive to outreach, never returned weekly check-in calls, and completed none of his case plan action steps.
The Court’s Holding
The Vermont Supreme Court, sitting as a three-justice panel, affirmed the Addison Unit Family Division’s termination of father’s residual parental rights. The court held that the trial court applied the correct legal standard under 33 V.S.A. § 5114 and that its findings were amply supported by the record. The critical statutory question — whether father could resume parental duties within a reasonable time as measured from the children’s perspective — was answered in the negative, and that conclusion was not an abuse of discretion.
The court rejected father’s argument that 33 V.S.A. § 5101(a)(3), which directs that juvenile proceedings be construed to preserve the family, imposed a higher bar for termination. The court explained that while family preservation is one of the statute’s enumerated purposes, § 5101(a)(4) designates “safety and timely permanency for children” as the paramount concern. The trial court acted consistently with both provisions.
The court also rejected father’s suggestion that termination was improper because the children were thriving in foster care and approaching the age of majority, or that his rights were terminated solely due to the incomplete ICPC and “inconsistent” contact. The court found that father’s non-compliance with the case plan, failure to engage with DCF, ongoing unaddressed issues of substance abuse and domestic violence, and the children’s express wishes all independently supported termination. The panel reiterated that even a finding of a parent-child bond would not compel a different result, as public policy does not require maintaining that bond regardless of the cost to the child.
Key Takeaways
- Under Vermont law, the paramount concern in termination proceedings is the safety and timely permanency of children, not family preservation, even though family preservation is a recognized statutory purpose under 33 V.S.A. § 5101.
- A parent’s failure to complete ICPC requirements, engage with DCF, or fulfill any case plan action steps over a multi-year period strongly supports a finding that the parent cannot resume parental duties within a reasonable time.
- Children’s own credible testimony about abuse, the absence of a parent-child relationship, and an unwillingness to reunify is entitled to significant weight in the best-interests analysis.
- That children are doing well in foster care does not preclude termination; rather, it supports the finding that the foster placement advances the goal of safety and permanency.
- This is an unpublished three-justice panel decision and carries no precedential weight before any Vermont tribunal.
Why It Matters
This decision illustrates the Vermont Supreme Court’s consistent emphasis on permanency as the overriding value in long-running child-welfare cases. For practitioners, it underscores that a geographically distant parent who fails to engage with DCF, complete case plan requirements, or maintain meaningful contact with children over a three-plus-year custody period faces a very high risk of termination — even if a first petition was denied and even if the children are approaching adulthood. The court’s rejection of father’s § 5101 “family preservation” argument signals that that provision cannot be read to raise the evidentiary threshold for termination above the standard best-interests analysis.
The opinion also reinforces that courts may credit detailed testimony from older children about parental abuse and their own preferences, and that such testimony can be dispositive. Attorneys representing parents in CHINS and termination proceedings should counsel clients early and forcefully that non-responsiveness to DCF, failure to sign releases, and non-completion of domestic-violence or substance-abuse programming will be treated as stagnation — and that geographic distance from Vermont does not excuse those obligations.