Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
A.C., the mother of 14-year-old M.L., appealed the February 26, 2026 contested section 366.3 post-permanency review order. Her sole argument was that the juvenile court erred by denying her request to add therapeutic visits to the existing monthly supervised visitation order. The dependency began in October 2013 with a petition alleging failure to protect and lack of support; the court sustained it in January 2014, removed M.L., and ordered reunification services, later terminated.
Visits were suspended as detrimental in February 2016, and in January 2017 M.L. was determined an Indian child under ICWA. At the March 2017 section 366.26 hearing the court adopted a permanent plan of continued foster care with return home, adoption, legal guardianship, or placement with a fit and willing relative. M.L. remained in foster care; her aggressive behaviors were a substantial barrier to permanency. She received mental health services and, from 2019, psychotropic medication. Supervised visitation resumed in September 2018 at one visit per month; telephone calls ended in 2024 after mother inappropriately discussed reunification. M.L. did not visit from February through June 2025, and the case plan allowed monthly supervised visitation only if M.L. requested it.
The January 2026 review materials described recent visits as generally going well but followed by increased defiance and mood changes. M.L.'s CASA reported inappropriate reunification promises by mother and the maternal grandmother. Mother requested at least two therapeutic visits per month in addition to the existing order. The agency opposed, citing mother's lack of progress, M.L.'s emotional instability after visits, and reports that mother told M.L. she did not need medication. At the contested hearing the reports were admitted without cross-examination; mother's counsel argued therapeutic visits would improve communication, while the agency, M.L.'s attorney, her tribal representative, and her CASA opposed.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal reviewed for abuse of discretion, explaining dependency law affords juvenile courts great discretion over parent-child visitation and warrants a very high degree of deference; the test is whether the court exceeded the bounds of reason. The court rejected mother's reliance on a substantial-evidence case because that decision involved a detriment finding at an 18-month review, not conditions on a post-reunification visitation order. Mother bore the burden of overcoming the presumption of correctness and demonstrating reversible error.
The court held mother did not carry that burden. She was the only proponent of therapeutic visitation and offered no evidence beyond counsel's conclusory assertions. No mental health provider recommended the service, and mother pointed to no record evidence that therapeutic visits would alleviate the specific harms of her contact or advance M.L.'s stability. Given M.L.'s existing intensive individual services and reported emotional instability after visits, the juvenile court reasonably determined that adding therapeutic visitation could cause harm by placing unnecessary additional stress on M.L.
The court also rejected mother's reliance on an agency statement referencing increased mental health services, which in context concerned stabilization and coping skills, not an endorsement of therapeutic visits. The opinion noted an earlier case plan had offered a similar family-counseling resource upon request, but no report showed mother ever requested it. The court affirmed the juvenile court's order; it did not eliminate visitation or decide that therapeutic visitation could never be appropriate, but found no abuse of discretion on this record.
Key Takeaways
- A parent seeking therapeutic visitation at a post-permanency review must support the request with record evidence connecting the service to the child's needs rather than rely on counsel's assertions.
- The absence of any recommendation from M.L.'s mental health providers was significant because mother offered no evidence that therapeutic visits would reduce visit-related harm or improve stability.
- The agency's general reference to increased mental health services did not compel therapeutic visitation where the agency expressly opposed that request and emphasized stabilization and coping skills.
- After years of unsuccessful reunification efforts, the child's interest in stability and permanence reasonably outweighed the parent's request for increased contact.
- The affirmance preserved monthly supervised visitation at M.L.'s request and established no categorical rule against therapeutic visits in other dependency cases.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how deferential abuse-of-discretion review operates when a parent seeks to expand, rather than preserve, post-permanency visitation. The decisive considerations were the absence of evidence supporting this particular intervention, the opposition of those tasked with advocating for M.L., and a reasonable concern that added contact could increase stress and undermine permanency.
Because the opinion is expressly not certified for publication under California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), its analysis resolves this case but does not announce a new generally applicable visitation rule.