Case plans bypassing parents?

Byline: Kevin Featherly

Two recent unpublished Minnesota Court of Appeals rulings are pointing to a troublesome phenomenon that family law attorneys say is becoming commonplace in Minnesota.

They say that county social workersoverburdened by crushing caseloadsare taking shortcuts. Specifically, they are presenting fully fleshed out child-placement case plans for parents to sign without first consulting them, as Minn. Stat. Sec 260c requires.

If the parent refuses to sign, the plan is filed with the court anyway and the parent may be viewed as uncooperative, the attorneys say. If they do sign but later fail to fulfill its directivesorders to complete drug treatment or parenting assessments, for examplethey can lose their parental rights.

That's true, both recent rulings demonstrate, whether or not the parent understands the obligations or has the ability to carry them out.

"In my experience, it's very common practice for a case worker to develop a case plan without consulting with the parents," said attorney Nicole Gronneberg. "They're also required to then sit down and explain that case plan with the parents."

Gronneberg represented a father identified only as "D.C." in one of the recent rulings. In both cases, the dads failed to fulfill their case-plan obligations and trial courts stripped them of their parental rights.

Also in both cases, the Court of Appeals reversed. The appellate judges found that social workers had not made reasonable efforts to get fathers' input before assembling case plans, which determine what services the family needs while ordering parents, before reunification, to correct any issues that threaten their kids' safety or wellbeing.

Gronneberg's client is an inmate in the St. Cloud state prison, serving time for shooting an innocent bystander following a Minneapolis street brawl.

After his arrest, his three children were placed with their maternal grandmother, who hopes to adopt them. D.C. maintained contact with his oldest child over the phone while his two toddlers listened in on the calls. Both the grandmother and the children's guardian ad litem wanted the kids to maintain relationships with their father.

But instead of working with D.C., a county social worker wrote the family case plan in consultation only with the grandmother. According to court filings, the social worker said it was too difficult to communicate with D.C. behind bars. Ultimately she spoke with him just once, over the phone, months after the...