In re S.B. CA1/4

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

S.B. was born in 1999. Her mother claimed she became pregnant with S.B. after father raped her when she was 17. Father and mother never married, and father was unaware that S.B. was his biological daughter until 2001 when he took a paternity test and was adjudged to be her father in a child-support proceeding. Father was incarcerated during mother’s pregnancy and for “most of [S.B.]’s childhood.” He has never had contact with S.B., although he tried to locate her when he was in prison after learning she was his daughter. He is currently serving a 21-year sentence after being convicted in 2004 of several sexual offenses against minor girls. Mother is bipolar and schizophrenic, and she has substance-abuse problems. For most of her life, S.B. has lived with, and has been cared for by, her maternal grandmother. In April 2012, the Mendocino County Department of Social Services (Department)2 filed a petition to have S.B.’s four-year-old half-brother declared a dependent of the court after mother reported that she was in a relationship involving domestic violence, had hit her son, and could no longer care for him. Shortly after that dependency…