In re D.C. CA1/1

I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL

BACKGROUND

D.C. was born in August 2013. Although father and R.C. (mother) behaved appropriately with him at the hospital, D.C. was removed from their care four days after he was born because of father’s drug use and the parents’ mental illness, history of domestic violence, and failure to comply with case plans in dependency cases involving other children of theirs, including sister and a set of paternal half-siblings.3 The Contra Costa County Children & Family Services Bureau (Bureau) filed a juvenile dependency petition alleging jurisdiction under section 300, subdivision (b) (failure to protect) based on the parents’ domestic violence and drug use and under subdivision (j) (abuse of sibling) based on the parents’ failure to participate in reunification services in the other dependency cases involving their children. Father appeared at the detention hearing and was declared the presumed father. Neither parent appeared at the contested jurisdictional hearing in November 2013, however, and the juvenile court found that the petition’s allegations were true and that D.C. was a child described by section 300, subdivisions (b) and (j). Despite an order…