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In re Nathaniel B.11/6/2002
ible by failing to provide the court the information which it had gathered, we shall consider the total circumstances of the dependency encompassed by both appeals rather than limit our review to the matters addressed at each hearing separately.
Appellant, as the minor's grandmother who sought placement under the relative placement preference, is a person aggrieved by the court's order denying her relative placement request. Accordingly, she has standing to appeal. (Cesar V. v. Superior Court (2001) 91 Cal.App.4th 1023, 1034-1035.) We turn to the merits of appellant's claim.
II.
Appellant contends she was not fairly evaluated under section 361.3 as a relative placement for the minor since DHHS did not timely present an evaluation of her although the evaluation was complete and available prior to the dispositional hearing. Appellant further contends the evaluation itself was inadequate, substantial evidence did not support the court's finding she was an inappropriate placement for the minor and the court abused its discretion in denying appellant's request for placement of the minor.
The exercise of the court's discretion and the investigative task for DHHS in assessing the relative placement preference is set forth in section 361.3. The statute makes it clear that the determination of whether the minor is to be placed with a relative is shared between the social worker and the court. Each must consider numerous factors in making the determination. The statutory factors generally focus on the relative's current ability to provide a home for the minor, while taking into account any history of violent criminal acts or acts of child abuse or neglect. (ยง 361.3, subd. (a)(1)-(8).) Under the standards set forth in the statute and in the light of the preference for placement of minors who are removed from parental custody with relatives, we conclude appellant was not fairly evaluated for placement.
Although the evaluation itself did contain current information, the reunification social worker and the adoptions worker relied almost entirely upon events which occurred several years earlier in rejecting appellant's placement request. Despite the lack of any criminal or child abuse history, each social worker who reviewed the placement evaluation focused upon the fact that appellant and her current husband had each been unfortunate enough to have a child whose children had been removed. In appellant's case, her concern for the safety of her grandchildren which led her to take them to the receiving home was swept aside and she was condemned for failing to "reunify" with them. However, the record before the juvenile court contained no evidence that the social worker in the half-siblings' case offered appellant, rather than the mother, the opportunity to "reunify." Indeed, since appellant had only temporary custody, it is likely that reunification efforts for the half-siblings were spent on the mother. Even attempting to assert a relative placement preference or visit regularly in the half-siblings' case may have been problematic for appellant who was herself escaping a violent marriage of 18 years and having to build a life alone. The point is, there are no facts. That is not the worst of it. To compound the bureaucratic failure to reflect fairly upon and then to compile, analyze, and utilize pertinent facts, social workers relied on mere appearances and failed to recognize the absence of any empirical basis for them.
While the social workers expressed concerns based upon appellant's past history, the actual history is not discernable from the record and there is no indication they asked appellant for her explanations of the appearances that concerned the
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