In re T.S. CA2/3

BACKGROUND

The family consists of mother, father (N.S.), and their two children, T.S. (born January 2010) and N.S. (born June 2011). The family came to DCFS’s attention in 2013 when it received reports of domestic abuse and parents’ drug use, which included methamphetamine and crystal methamphetamine. In August 2013, the children were removed from parents and placed with maternal grandmother, and the following month, DCFS filed a petition under section 300 alleging various counts based on parents’ history of domestic violence and illicit drug abuse. Mother and father told a social worker that the children may have Navajo or Blackfeet ancestry. In keeping with that, mother reported on her ICWA-020 form that she might have Blackfeet ancestry and that maternal great-grandmother, whose name mother provided, might have information. Father reported

1All further statutory references are to the Welfare and Institutions Code.

2 on his form that he may have Navajo ancestry.2 At the September 2013 detention hearing, the juvenile court ordered DCFS to investigate father’s claim of Navajo heritage (the minute order did not mention mother’s claim). The social worker thereafter spoke to…