{"id":1387,"date":"2014-08-14T19:13:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T00:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1387"},"modified":"2014-08-14T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T00:13:14","slug":"there-is-no-cure-for-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1387","title":{"rendered":"There Is No Cure For Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"webeagle\"<\/a>
\nMost Iowa Court of Appeals decisions that pertain to family law or juveniles are uninteresting or insignificant to anyone but those individuals who are directly involved in the case.\u00a0 Occasionally, an attorney practicing family law or juvenile law should scan the decisions to find fine points of law used in the practice.\u00a0 We rarely bother to read those cases. \u00a0However, one recent ruling raised our eyebrows.<\/p>\n

A mother gave birth to her fourth child.\u00a0 Within a month, the child was adjudicated a \u201cchild in need of assistance\u201d [CINA] by the Iowa Department of Human Services.\u00a0 The mother fought this adjudication for several reasons.\u00a0 But first, let\u2019s share some background.<\/p>\n

The birth mother had a long history of drug offenses, bad choices and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.\u00a0 The mother\u2019s other children had all been adjudicated as CINA\u2019s previously.\u00a0 Those three children had witnessed an incident in which the driver of the vehicle they were in shot at police and fled.\u00a0 Their mother was in the passenger seat.\u00a0 Marijuana and methamphetamine were in her system.\u00a0 This was not the first instance of drug possession, violence, or involvement with Human Services.<\/p>\n

At the time of the youngest child\u2019s adjudication as a CINA, the baby\u2019s 3 older siblings were back living with their mother.\u00a0 The mother was doing everything to turn her life around.\u00a0 She successfully completed an inpatient substance abuse program, followed through on every service available to her, spent 2 months living with her children in Women\u2019s and Children\u2019s Center, and lived with her brother before she obtained and sustained suitable living for herself and her children.<\/p>\n

Like an ad on late night television, \u201cbut that\u2019s not all!\u201d\u00a0 She was participating in therapy \u201cand made steady progress in both her recovery process and her relationship with her children\u201d.\u00a0 She changed her friends, secured a car, and, according to the guardian ad litem, took \u201cthe steps necessary for a complete rehabilitation and she is learning to parent sober.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Human Services is relentless, cold and unforgiving.\u00a0 The minute her fourth child was born the State petitioned to have the child adjudicated as a CINA based only upon the exhibits that were created during the mother\u2019s troubled times.\u00a0 The juvenile court granted the petition because, even though the mother \u201cis working on her substance abuse issues . . . it is evident that she has not overcome her addiction<\/b>.\u201d\u00a0 (Emphasis mine.)\u00a0 No one overcomes an addition.\u00a0 Day by day; minute by minute \u2013 that\u2019s the only way to work a program.\u00a0 Any addict can tell you about the difficult times of maintaining sobriety.\u00a0 What did she have to do to convince the court that she was not the same mother that had the previous 3 children in need of assistance?<\/p>\n

The chapter in the Iowa Code that pertains to juveniles, Chapter 232, lives by the premise of what is in \u201cthe child\u2019s best interest\u201d.\u00a0 How could jerking the child away from this fragile mother be in the best interest of anyone?<\/p>\n

In the end, this sane panel of three appellate judges concluded that the record \u201cdoes not contain clear and convincing evidence the child is imminently likely to be abused or neglected or to suffer harmful effects as a result of a lack of supervision.\u201d\u00a0 Good for them!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most Iowa Court of Appeals decisions that pertain to family law or juveniles are uninteresting or insignificant to anyone but those individuals who are directly involved in the case.\u00a0 Occasionally, an attorney practicing family law or juvenile law should scan … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,32],"tags":[118,542,537,541],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issues","category-substance-abuse-and-alcoholism","tag-addiction","tag-cina","tag-iowa-court-of-appeals","tag-iowa-department-of-human-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1387\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}