In re S.F. CA2/5

BACKGROUND

As a child, mother was involved in the foster care system. She has four older children, born between 2007 and 2016, who are half-siblings of minor; the oldest is over the age of 18, and mother’s parental rights have been terminated as to the other three. It is not necessary to provide extensive detail about the earlier dependency proceedings involving minor’s half siblings. We note, however, that mother was convicted of cruelty to a child in July 2014, and in November 2014, a juvenile court sustained allegations that mother physically abused a child, resulting in facial swelling and lacerations to the child’s nose, shoulder, back, and buttocks, resulting in the child’s hospitalization, and mother pulled braided hair from the child’s scalp. In addition, in September 2020, when the halfsibling closest in age to minor was three years old, the dependency court sustained section 342 petition allegations that mother physically and emotionally abused the child.3 Minor was born in July 2020, and a Department social worker interviewed mother at the hospital on August 1, 2020, in part because mother had previously denied being pregnant even when asked directly, and there had…