Case Summary: Petition to terminate parental rights filed by DFS is denied as to both parents for DFS' failure to use reasonable efforts to reunify Mother with the four children. The Court found that while Mother was offered services, there was minimal effort to find ways to help her comply, rendering the case plan insufficient to meet the needs of this parent. "Case plans must be individually tailored so as to reach the specific needs of a family." The Court does not have a duty to construct the various provisions of the case plan, but it is charged with the duty to ensure that the agency is complying with the requirements of the law in constructing the case plan for the parent. Here, DFS failed to provide Mother with a meaningful case plan. As a result, the Court need not address Father, although the Court did hold that DFS has the ability, subject to judicial review and approval, to not create a case plan where reunification is not feasible. 29 Del. C. § 9003(b)(13). The Court presumed that DFS did not originally approach Father to case plan since he refused to accept any DFS services and had been convicted of terroristically threatening a DFS worker. However, given that Mother's case plan was not in compliance with state and federal law, the Court declined to further address Father. Next, the parents argued that they were entitled to court-appointed counsel in the dependency/neglect stage of the proceedings. The Court declined to address the issue given the Supreme Court's holdings in Brown and Cooper v. DFS and CASA and In the Matter of Carolyn S.S., holding that the doctrine of stare decisis applies, and any ruling to the contrary must come from the Supreme Court. Finally, DFS argued that the Court may terminate the rights of Father without terminating Mother's parental rights. Regardless of the statutory changes to 13 Del. C. § 1103(b), the Court determined that to terminate only Father's rights and vest those rights in DFS, would leave Mother and DFS as joint parents, a situation the Court could find no authority to support. The Court denied DFS' request.

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