L.H., Father Appellant. v. << (2026)

A mother and father separately appeal the termination of their parental rights to their daughter, C.H., born in September 2023. They both challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the grounds for termination and claim the district court should have provided additional time to work toward reunification. The father also claims the State failed to make reasonable efforts to provide him with services. Upon our review, we affirm on both appeals.

BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

When C.H. was two months old, this family came to the attention of the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services upon reports that the mother was using methamphetamine. The mother's drug screen was positive for methamphetamine. A safety plan was implemented in which the father would supervise the mother with C.H. The parents have a history of substance use. The mother had prior involvement with the department in 2018 due to her methamphetamine use, which resulted in the mother agreeing to her older two children residing with their father out of state.

The parents did not follow the safety plan. The mother continued to test positive for methamphetamine, and providers found her unsupervised with the child and acting erratically. The father tested positive for amphetamine and marijuana. C.H. was removed from the parents’ custody in April 2024 and placed with the maternal grandparents. In August, the court entered an order adjudicating the child in need of assistance (CINA). A few months later, providers found the child handling a bag of marijuana that she discovered on the living room floor during a visit, an incident that resulted in a founded child abuse assessment.¹ In December, the child was placed in foster care after the department realized the grandparents withheld information about the grandfather's criminal history and the grandmother was unable to recognize the parents’ substance use.

Over the next year, the parents made little progress toward reunification. The mother participated in extended outpatient treatment and maintained she was not using methamphetamine. But the mother either no-showed or tested positive on drug tests. In July, the mother was unsuccessfully discharged from outpatient treatment. The provider recommended the mother complete inpatient treatment, which the mother declined. The mother also declined recommendations for mental-health treatment. The father did not complete requested drug tests, and he did not participate in recommended treatment. The State initiated termination-of-parental-rights proceedings in August 2025.

The termination hearing took place over two days in October. The father had not participated in a drug test since November 2024, which was positive for methamphetamine. The father testified he last used methamphetamine thirty-five years ago, and he maintained that he tested positive at the beginning of this case because of his EpiPen. The father stated that he missed drug tests because he does not have wi-fi. He explained, “I feel if you want to know who I am and want to drug test, I will pee in a cup for you. I'll get it, but I am not going to give you a hair sample so you can judge me throughout my whole life. That's not right.” The father testified, “I have no reason to lose my daughter.”

The mother completed two drug tests in the six months prior to the termination hearing, which were both positive for methamphetamine. She missed seven other requested tests. The mother testified that she would have permanent housing soon, and C.H. could live with her “today” in her temporary housing. The mother maintained she last used methamphetamine in April 2023. She claimed her positive drug tests were “absolutely wrong,” believing that her medications interfered with the tests.² The mother stated she was doing well in outpatient treatment, and she did not know why she was discharged. The mother testified she had recently been approved for disability due to “anxiety,” “schizoaffective disorder,” “bipolar,” “PTSD,” “[a]voidant personality disorder,” “depression,” and “substance use disorder.” But the mother maintained, “I will not use [illegal substances] because I want [C.H.] back.” She believed the department was “preventing [her] from having [her] daughter since the day they took her.”

The parents’ visits with the child remained fully supervised. As the family-centered services supervisor opined, “I believe they love her. I do not believe in any way, shape or form they can parent her.” Meanwhile, the child was “extremely bonded” to her foster parents, who were willing to adopt her. The caseworkers and guardian ad litem recommended termination of parental rights.

After the hearing, the court denied the parents’ requests for additional time and terminated the parents’ rights under Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(h), (k) and (l) (2025) (as to the mother) and section 232.116(1)(e), (h) and (l) (as to the father). The parents appeal.

ISSUES ON APPEAL

We employ the familiar statutory framework analysis on our de novo review of this case. In re P.L., 778 N.W.2d 33, 40 (Iowa 2010). “However, if a parent does not challenge a step in our analysis, we need not address it.” In re J.P., No. 19-1633, 2020 WL 110425, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 9, 2020).

I. Grounds for Termination

Both parents challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the grounds for termination. However, the father offers no substantive argument to support his challenge to termination under section 232.116(1)(h) and (l) and instead “incorporates the arguments contained in Mother's Petition on Appeal for this issue.” We therefore consider his arguments waived and affirm. See In re S.R., 600 N.W.2d 63, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 1999) (noting when the court “terminates parental rights on more than one statutory ground, we need only find grounds to terminate under one of the sections cited by the juvenile court to affirm”).³

We focus on the mother's challenge to the court's decision to terminate her parental rights under Iowa Code section 232.116(1)(h). The court may terminate parental rights under this section if it finds:

(1) The child is three years of age or younger.

(2) The child has been adjudicated a child in need of assistance pursuant to section 232.96.

(3) The child has been removed from the physical custody of the child's parents for at least six months of the last twelve months, or for the last six consecutive months and any trial period at home has been less than thirty days.

(4) There is clear and convincing evidence that the child cannot be returned to the custody of the child's parents as provided in section 232.102 at the present time.

Iowa Code § 232.116(1)(h). The mother does not dispute the elements for termination under section 232.116(1)(h)(1)–(3). Instead, she argues “the child was able to be immediately returned to her care on the date of the termination hearing.”

Children cannot be returned to the parents as provided in section 232.102 if the children will suffer harm that would justify a CINA adjudication. Id. § 232.102(4)(a)(2). The mother acknowledges “[t]he primary concern throughout this case has been concern about [her] using methamphetamine.” She persists, however, that her positive drug tests were “false positives” due to the department's “unreliable” testing. But without evidence to support the mother's theories, that is all they are. The court specifically found “the parents’ behavior was consistent with methamphetamine use” and “[n]one of [the mother's] excuses are credible.” The court also observed that the mother's most recent test results were at an “incredibly high level and 150 times above the lower cutoff testing level.”

Our review of the record shows C.H. cannot be safely returned to the mother's custody based on the mother's longstanding and unresolved substance-use issues. See, e.g., In re J.S., No. 23-0399, 2023 WL 3335325, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. May 10, 2023) (“[W]e are unable to conclude that the father's methamphetamine use is at an end, so we conclude the child cannot be returned to the father's custody safely.”). We accordingly affirm termination under section 232.116(1)(h).

II. Additional Time for Reunification

Both parents claim the court erred in failing to provide six more months to work toward reunification rather than terminating their parental rights. See Iowa Code §§ 232.117(5), 232.104(2)(b). The court may give a parent more time “only if the need for removal will no longer exist at the end of the additional six-month period.” In re W.T., 967 N.W.2d 315, 323 (Iowa 2021) (cleaned up); see also In re A.A.G., 708 N.W.2d 85, 92 (Iowa Ct. App. 2005). On this question, the district court found:

The parents have not been able to progress to unsupervised visits. None of the providers believe that additional time to work toward reunification would be successful and the Court concurs. In short, the child has been out of the home for more than a year and the parents have made no progress towards reunification. This history is an accurate predictor of what the future will hold. The child deserves permanency. The child is bonded to her current caregivers and has started to make some progress on talking. The child's needs are best met by the stability that termination of parental rights will provide.

We concur with the court that considering the parents’ lack of progress when offered services throughout this case, there is no prospect in the foreseeable future that either could become a safe and stable caregiver for the child. See In re T.B., 604 N.W.2d 660, 662 (Iowa 2000) (“The future can be gleaned from evidence of the parents’ past performance and motivations.”). “We have long recognized that an unresolved, severe, and chronic drug addiction can render a parent unfit to raise children.” In re A.B., 815 N.W.2d 764, 776 (Iowa 2012). Under this record, we are unconvinced that the parents’ substance-use issues will be resolved within six months. See In re B.T., No. 22-0445, 2022 WL 1234887, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 27, 2022). We affirm on this issue.

III. Reasonable Efforts

The father also claims “[t]he State did not make reasonable efforts to provide services to [him] to assist in reunification with [C.H.]” The State has an obligation to provide reasonable services, but the parent must demand different or additional services the parent may require prior to the termination hearing. S.R., 600 N.W.2d at 65. And “voicing complaints regarding the adequacy of services to a social worker is not sufficient.” In re C.H., 652 N.W.2d 144, 148 (Iowa 2002). Rather, the parent must alert the court to his challenge. Id.

Here, even disregarding whether the father preserved this claim by raising it before the district court, the father's wholesale lack of participation in services throughout this case dispels it. Quite simply, the father followed through with no recommended services. See In re C.B., 611 N.W.2d 489, 495 (Iowa 2000) (noting the parent is required to actively and positively respond to services). Nor did he acknowledge using illegal substances, which precipitated the department's involvement in this case. See S.R., 600 N.W.2d at 65 (finding the services provided to the parent were reasonable, particularly where the parent refused to acknowledge the initial concerns raised to the department). The services provided to the father satisfied the reasonable-efforts requirement.

We affirm the termination of both parents’ parental rights.

AFFIRMED ON BOTH APPEALS.

FOOTNOTES

1.   The mother maintained “there was no bag of weed at my house” and claimed the incident “was a setup.”

2.   The mother also testified the father's test was positive for methamphetamine because “he has been sick. There is cold medicine that does do it. Depression medicines do it. All sorts of factors go into a drug test being positive.”

3.   Even if we were to find the father's argument as to 232.116(1)(h) was not waived, the State provided clear and convincing evidence as to the fourth element, that the child could not be returned to the father's custody at the time of the termination hearing. The father has not engaged in any services to address concerns related to substance use and has failed to participate in drug testing since the child's removal from parental custody.

Opinion by Schumacher, J.