Adoption of J.D. CA2/6

FACTS

Mother and Father are the unmarried parents of J.D., a teenage girl who was born in 2006. In 2008, they had “shared joint legal custody” of J.D., and Father had “supervised visitation” with J.D. Mother has had full legal and physical custody of J.D. since 2019. Z. moved in to live with Mother in 2010. In 2019, Father filed a request to modify his visitation rights with J.D. to allow him to have “unsupervised visits.” J.D. wanted the visits to “remain supervised.” The family court denied Father’s request. In 2020, Z. married Mother and became J.D.’s stepfather. On November 1, 2021, Mother filed a petition to terminate Father’s parental rights to J.D. She alleged Father’s last visit with J.D. was on August 19, 2019. She claimed Father “has not tried to contact the minor child for more than a year” and this constitutes an intent to abandon the child. On February 22, 2022, the Ventura County Human Services Agency (HSA) filed a report with the trial court. The social worker interviewed Mother, the stepfather, and the child. J.D. told the social worker, “ ‘I want to be adopted, [Z., the stepfather] is my dad.’ ” HSA did not interview Father. It recommended that J.D. “be freed to…