Parent and Child: Record supports decision to terminate mother’s parental rights

Where efforts to provide the mother with rehabilitative services were reasonable and appropriate, but she was unwilling or unable to remedy substantially the conditions which led to the children’s placement in foster care within a reasonable period of time, her parental rights were terminated.

Background                                       

Stacey Yvette Long appeals the final order of the circuit court terminating her residual parental rights.

Waiver

In both of Long’s assignments of error, she asserts that the errors were “preserved contemporaneous with the ruling” but her brief does not cite to a page in the record. “No ruling of the trial court . . . will be considered as a basis for reversal unless an objection was stated with reasonable certainty at the time of the ruling, except for good cause shown or to enable this Court to attain the ends of justice.”

Here, because there is no oral ruling from the circuit court within the transcript, the record does not reflect that an objection to the circuit court’s findings was ever brought to the attention of the circuit court. Moreover, since no objection, contemporaneous or otherwise, appears in the record, neither do any grounds for ruling on such an objection appear in the record. Likewise, there is no written objection to the circuit court’s final orders from which this court could glean the grounds for any objection. Accordingly, Long has waived her alleged assignments of error on appeal.

Long, however, goes further by superficially noting in her assignments of error the “[e]nds of justice, as the portion of the hearing was not transcribed.” But Long’s brief is devoid of any authority or argument regarding the application of the ends of justice exception to the case at hand. Thus, even if this court deems this a request to invoke the ends of justice exception to Rule 5A:18, it declines to do so since the record contains adequate evidence to support the circuit court’s ruling and Long fails to affirmatively assert or demonstrate that a miscarriage of justice occurred requiring reversal of the termination orders.

Merits

            The record supports the circuit court’s finding that the City of Lynchburg Department of Social Services made reasonable and appropriate efforts in this case and that Long was afforded a reasonable time in which to remedy the conditions which led to the children’s foster care placement.

Long and Brian Miller engaged in nearly a decade of domestic violence, with Long and Miller both admitting that the children often witnessed their altercations and that they involved the children in their arguments. Long minimized the 2017 stabbing of Miller, characterizing it as “accidental” and that she was unaware that she stabbed him. She stated that they would “fist fight,” that Miller had hit his head on a light fixture while they were “wrestling,” and that Miller had choked her.

Despite the Department’s safety plan, Long resisted the Department’s efforts to relocate her, left M.L. in the care of Miller while his criminal charges were still pending and then blamed M.L. for the Department removing the children from the home. In addition to beating M.L. after the child walked in on Long having sex, Long admitted that she told M.L. to lie during the criminal proceedings against Miller.

Moreover, despite repeated attempts by the Department, Long remained in the “toxic relationship” with Miller even though she contended that she had ended the relationship numerous times. As a result, her ongoing domestic violence with Miller continued to create a negative environment that prevented the Department from recommending that the children be returned to Long.

Although Long testified that she “didn’t need” the services of the Department, she asserts that the failure of the Department to offer recommended services from her psychiatrist is enough to assign error to the circuit court, and, by extension, meet her burden under the ends of justice exception. However, as the caseworker, Rukiya Johnson testified, the services in question were not offered because the Department never recommended that the children return home to Long if Miller was still a part of their life.

Thus, the record supports the circuit court’s conclusion that the Department’s efforts to provide Long with rehabilitative services were reasonable and appropriate and further that Long was unwilling or unable to remedy substantially the conditions which led to the children’s placement in foster care within a reasonable period of time. By the time of the circuit court hearing, the children had been in foster care for nearly two years and were adjusting well to their foster homes.

Affirmed.

Long v. City of Lynchburg Department of Social Services, Record No. 0362-25-3, Aug. 12, 2025. CAV (unpublished opinion) (per curiam). From the Circuit Court of the City of Lynchburg (Watson). (Carlos A. Hutcherson, on brief), for appellant. (Kathryn Laura Jordan Thomas, Assistant City Attorney; Hellen Perrow Carrington, Guardian ad litem for the minor children, on brief), for appellee. VLW 025-7-218. 15 pp.