IN RE: K.B. and M.L. (2025)

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Case Summary

[1] C.B. (“Father”) and H.B. (“Mother”) (collectively, “Parents”) appeal the trial court's order adjudicating their children to be children in need of services (CHINS), arguing the evidence is insufficient to support the adjudication. We disagree and affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

[2] Parents have two children: K.B., born in March 2020, and M.L., born in August 2022. On February 23, 2024, Father was home alone with eighteen-month-old M.L. Around 1:30 p.m., Father put M.L. down for a nap and then went to sleep himself. Ten minutes later, someone found M.L. wandering outside and contacted police. Officers couldn't determine where M.L. had come from, so they took him to the police station and contacted the Department of Child Services (DCS). Father woke up around 3:40 p.m., realized M.L. was gone, and started looking for him. Mother returned home from work shortly thereafter and, unable to find M.L., called 911. She was told that he was at the DCS office. Later that day, after agreeing to a safety plan and submitting to drug screens, Parents were allowed to return home with M.L.

[3] Parents’ drug screens came back positive for methamphetamine. Father's level was particularly high: the “Cutoff” level was 10 ng/ml, and Father's level was 70,923.2 ng/ml. Ex. p. 63. After receiving those results, DCS filed a petition alleging the children are CHINS. While the petition was pending, all of Mother's drug screens were negative, but all fifteen of Father's screens were positive for methamphetamine. Father continued living in the family home, but Mother agreed to a new safety plan that provided he “will not be a caregiver for the children whatsoever.” Tr. p. 110. But when the court-appointed special advocate (CASA) made an unannounced visit a week before the fact-finding hearing, Mother exited her car alone and said Father was getting the children from daycare. Mother said it was not a good time and that the CASA needed to leave.

[4] After the fact-finding hearing, the trial court issued an order finding the children to be CHINS. The court concluded:

[This is not] a case of a single use of methamphetamine, this is a parent with an ongoing addiction to methamphetamine. Not one time from the initial DCS interaction to the fact-finding hearing has Father presented a negative drug screen for methamphetamine. This Court cannot find that the family's condition at the time of the fact-finding hearing has improved since the CHINS petition was filed.

Appellants’ App. Vol. II p. 149. The court then held a dispositional hearing and ordered Parents to participate in a variety of services.

[5] Parents now appeal.

Discussion and Decision

[6] Parents contend the evidence is insufficient to support the trial court's determination that their children are CHINS. We will reverse a CHINS adjudication only upon a showing that the decision was clearly erroneous. In re K.D., 962 N.E.2d 1249, 1253 (Ind. 2012). We consider only the evidence that supports the trial court's decision and all reasonable inferences that can be drawn therefrom, and we will not reweigh the evidence or judge the credibility of the witnesses. Id.

[7] DCS alleged that the children are CHINS under Indiana Code section 31-34-1-1, which provides:

A child is a child in need of services if before the child becomes eighteen (18) years of age:

(1) the child's physical or mental condition is seriously impaired or seriously endangered as a result of the inability, refusal, or neglect of the child's parent, guardian, or custodian to supply the child with necessary food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, or supervision:

(A) when the parent, guardian, or custodian is financially able to do so; or

(B) due to the failure, refusal, or inability of the parent, guardian, or custodian to seek financial or other reasonable means to do so; and

(2) the child needs care, treatment, or rehabilitation that:

(A) the child is not receiving; and

(B) is unlikely to be provided or accepted without the coercive intervention of the court.

An adjudication under this statute “requires three basic elements: that the parent's actions or inactions have seriously endangered the child, that the child's needs are unmet, and (perhaps most critically) that those needs are unlikely to be met without State coercion.” In re S.D., 2 N.E.3d 1283, 1287 (Ind. 2014), reh'g denied.

[8] The trial court found the children to be CHINS because Parents tested positive for methamphetamine—Father at a particularly high level—on the day M.L. was found wandering outside and because Father continued using methamphetamine after the CHINS petition was filed. Parents argue that DCS failed to introduce any evidence as to how Father's continued use of methamphetamine “endangered the health, safety or welfare of the Children.” Appellants’ Br. p. 21. But when children under five years old are living with a meth addict, no other evidence of endangerment is necessary.

[9] Parents also argue that they “were voluntarily complying with what DCS requested of them long before the trial court issued its CHINS finding” and that therefore the coercive intervention of the State isn't needed. Id. at 24. But Father was still using methamphetamine despite the pending CHINS petition. In addition, a week before the fact-finding hearing, Mother told the CASA that Father was getting the children from daycare, in direct violation of the safety plan that provided Father “will not be a caregiver for the children whatsoever.”

[10] Parents cite two cases where we reversed CHINS findings despite evidence of parental drug use, but both are easily distinguishable. In re Ad.M., 103 N.E.3d 709 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), involved ongoing drug use, but the drug was marijuana, not methamphetamine. Perrine v. Marion County Office of Child Services, 866 N.E.2d 269 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007), involved methamphetamine, but only a single use before the CHINS petition was filed. Here, Father had a high level of methamphetamine in his system at the time of the initial DCS encounter and continued using even after the CHINS petition was filed. That evidence amply supports the trial court's decision. See In re D.P., 213 N.E.3d 552, 562 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023) (distinguishing Ad.M. and Perrine and affirming a CHINS adjudication where there was “untreated methamphetamine use of unknown frequency and duration”), trans. denied.

[11] Parents have failed to show that the trial court's CHINS adjudication was clearly erroneous.

[12] Affirmed.

Vaidik, Judge.

Judges Bailey and DeBoer concur. Bailey, J., and DeBoer, J., concur.