In re M.L.
. was born in 1999. At birth, she tested positive for methamphetamine. The dependency court sustained a petition filed by respondent Department of Children and Family Services (the department) making M. a dependent of the court under section 300 of the Welfare and Institutions Code.[1] In 2002, the case was closed and the court terminated its jurisdiction, with M. remaining at home with mother. That petition was not, however, the first or last involving mother. Respondent had filed another petition years earlier to make mothers now-adult son, Ricky, a ward after he fell through an open window when he was two years old and became a paraplegic from the fall. Mother never reunified with Ricky and he remained in foster care for the rest of his childhood.
In December 2005, when M. was six years old, deputy sheriffs arrested mother when they found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia accessible to M. in mothers home. Consequently, the department filed a new section 300 petition, alleging mother could not care for M. because of her more than 30-year history of drug abuse. The department placed M. with an adult brother (not Ricky) and recommended no family reunification services for mother because she had not reunified with Ricky. ( 361.5, subd. (b)(10) [court need not order reunification services if parent previously failed to reunify with another child].) Mother entered a drug and alcohol treatment facility in January 2006. She also pleaded no contest to the petitions allegations, which the court sustained. At the disposition hearing in February 2006, the court ordered monitored visitation for mother and M., but no reunification services. The court also scheduled a permanent plan hearing for later in the year.
Mother Darla M. appeals from termination of her parental rights in M. Court affirm.
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