In re E.C. CA6

I. BACKGROUND

On October 21, 2019, a judge of the family court issued an emergency order for the Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children’s Services (the Department) to take E.C. into protective custody. The Department filed a juvenile dependency petition two days later, and the juvenile court ordered E.C.’s continued detention. On November 4, 2019, the Department placed E.C. in the care of his paternal grandparents. E.C. has remained with his paternal grandparents ever since. The Department filed the operative amended juvenile dependency petition in November 2019, under section 300, subdivisions (b)(1), (c), and (j). The Department alleged that E.C.’s father had repeatedly perpetrated domestic violence of a high lethality risk against the mother, exposing E.C. to that violence, and that the father had a long history of active substance abuse that impaired his judgment and placed the minor at a substantial risk of harm while in his care. The Department alleged that E.C.’s mother had been unable or unwilling to take steps to protect the minor from his father’s violence and had herself engaged in reactive domestic violence. Later that month, the juvenile court…