2. Background and Procedural History
The petition and adjudication
In December 2023, the West Virginia Department of Human Services (“DHS”) filed an abuse-and-neglect petition concerning G.H., then five, and B.Q., then four. The allegations included inadequate supervision, poor hygiene, and unsafe or unsanitary housing. A Child Protective Services (“CPS”) worker observed garbage and dirt throughout the home and an overflowing toilet that had soaked hallway carpeting. The petition also addressed the mother’s failure to submit to ordered drug screening following concerns about possible substance use.
The mother missed the preliminary hearing and the first adjudicatory hearing, although counsel represented her. During the adjudicatory proceedings, the parties reported a prior abuse-and-neglect case involving substance abuse and her continuing participation in medication-assisted treatment (“MAT”).
In April 2024, the mother stipulated that the home was unsafe or unsanitary and inappropriate when the petition was filed. She also acknowledged that her continued recovery from substance use disorder would be addressed during any improvement period. The circuit court adjudicated her as an abusing and neglecting parent. The appellate opinion notes that her written stipulation was not included in the appendix record.
The improvement period
In July 2024, the circuit court granted a post-adjudicatory improvement period. Its conditions included obtaining and maintaining suitable housing, voluntarily entering family treatment court (“FTC”), remaining in good standing, and following that program’s rules and directives.
Concerns about the mother’s behavior prompted a psychological evaluation. During that evaluation, she maintained that she lacked sufficient symptoms for a psychological diagnosis. The psychologist deferred diagnosis because of concerns about her honesty and considered future treatment compliance unlikely. The mother also repeatedly sought withdrawal from FTC because its requirements were too demanding.
The evidence concerning services was not uniformly negative. One provider testified that the mother participated in parenting and adult-life-skills services and attempted to apply what she learned. Other evidence, however, described substantial disengagement: missed drug screens, resistance to medication checks, dishonesty about her whereabouts, and poor visitation. Witnesses reported that she sometimes slept, left early, or avoided interacting with the children.
At the November 2024 FTC hearing, the mother admitted that her improvement period had not been successful, although she disputed adverse reports. The court dismissed her from FTC after she made clear that she did not wish to remain.
Disposition and appeal
At the final dispositional hearing in February 2025, the circuit court received additional testimony concerning noncompliance, visitation, drug testing, and the mother’s refusal to acknowledge a need for change. Evidence included a positive methamphetamine test and concerns arising from an inaccurate MAT prescription count.
The circuit court found that participation declined markedly after the improvement period began, that the mother willfully failed to participate, and that her attitude toward parenting had not changed. Particularly important was her subsequent denial of the unsafe housing conditions she had previously acknowledged.
The court found no reasonable likelihood that the conditions of abuse and neglect could be substantially corrected in the near future and determined that termination was necessary for the children’s welfare. Its August 7, 2025, order terminated her parental and custodial rights. The father’s rights were also terminated, and the children’s permanency plan was adoption in their current placement.
4. Analysis
A. Governing Legal Framework
The opinion separates three distinct questions: whether a parent was properly adjudicated, whether subsequent remedial efforts succeeded, and what disposition the children’s welfare required. An improvement period creates an opportunity to address the adjudicated problems; it does not guarantee reunification merely because some services were attended.
The statutory foundation was West Virginia Code § 49-4-604(c)(6). As applied here, termination required findings that there was no reasonable likelihood of substantial correction in the near future and that termination was necessary for the children’s welfare. Noncompliance supplied evidence supporting those findings; it did not replace them.
The court also applied West Virginia Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(c)(7), which requires specific record citations demonstrating when and how appellate issues were presented below. That requirement mattered because the mother’s appellate complaint about missing services lacked an identified objection or request in the circuit court.
B. Precedents Cited and Their Influence
1. In re K.S.: Different Standards for Different Appellate Questions
In re K.S., -- W. Va. --, 930 S.E.2d 400 (2026), supplied the standard of review: substantive rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion, factual findings for clear error, and legal questions de novo.
This framework shaped the entire appeal. The Supreme Court of Appeals independently considered the governing legal rules but did not simply substitute its preferred assessment of the evidence for the circuit court’s. Whether the improvement period had succeeded was principally a discretionary determination grounded in factual findings.
2. Noble v. W. Va. Dep't of Motor Vehicles and Shaffer v. Acme Limestone Co., Inc.: Preserving Issues for Appeal
In Noble v. W. Va. Dep't of Motor Vehicles, 223 W. Va. 818, 821, 679 S.E.2d 650, 653 (2009), the court reiterated the general rule that nonjurisdictional questions first raised on appeal will not be considered. That statement quoted Shaffer v. Acme Limestone Co., Inc., 206 W. Va. 333, 349 n.20, 524 S.E.2d 688, 704 n.20 (1999).
These authorities supported treating the mother’s service-related objection as waived. She did not identify where she had challenged the improvement-period conditions or sought the additional treatment she later claimed was essential. Their influence was procedural: an appellate challenge must ordinarily be presented while the lower court can still address it. The court nevertheless examined the merits and found the service complaint unsupported.
3. In re F.N. and In re Jonathan Michael D.: Success Is More Than Completing Tasks
In re F.N., 247 W. Va. 620, 626, 885 S.E.2d 558, 564 (2022), quoting In re Jonathan Michael D., 194 W. Va. 20, 27, 459 S.E.2d 131, 138 (1995), establishes that assessing an improvement period’s overall success lies within the circuit court’s discretion, regardless of whether a parent has completed all suggested case-plan goals.
This principle rejects a mechanical checklist approach. Attendance or isolated compliance does not necessarily establish a restored capacity to parent safely. Here, the circuit court could weigh some favorable service testimony against the larger pattern of disengagement, missed requirements, and unsuccessful visitation. The mother’s admission that the improvement period had failed reinforced that assessment.
4. In re K.L.: Nonparticipation Is Relevant to Termination
In re K.L., 247 W. Va. 657, 667, 885 S.E.2d 595, 605 (2022), describes failure to participate in an improvement period as “a statutorily-recognized basis” on which termination is regularly affirmed.
This authority directly answered the mother’s argument that termination improperly rested on her service failures rather than the housing conditions underlying adjudication. Post-adjudication conduct is relevant to whether the underlying abuse or neglect can be corrected. The court therefore could consider failures in agreed services when choosing a disposition.
The decision should not be read as making every missed appointment independently sufficient for termination. The court relied on a sustained pattern of nonparticipation together with the statutory findings concerning correction and child welfare.
5. In re Timber M. and In re Charity H.: Acknowledgment Makes Remediation Possible
In re Timber M., 231 W. Va. 44, 55, 743 S.E.2d 352, 363 (2013), quoting In re Charity H., 215 W. Va. 208, 217, 599 S.E.2d 631, 640 (2004), explains that failure to acknowledge a problem makes it untreatable.
This principle was especially important because the mother later denied the unsafe housing conditions to which she had stipulated. Her position was not merely that she had corrected the problem; the circuit court found that she claimed there was nothing she needed to change. That denial supported the conclusion that services had not produced meaningful recognition of the neglect or a realistic prospect of correction.
6. In re Katie S.: Visitation Reveals Parenting Potential
In re Katie S., 198 W. Va. 79, 90 n.14, 479 S.E.2d 589, 600 n.14 (1996), recognizes a parent’s interest in visiting children outside the parent’s custody as a significant indicator of the potential to improve sufficiently to meet minimum parenting standards.
The court used this precedent to explain why visitation evidence was substantively important. Reports that the mother avoided interaction, took frequent breaks, slept, or left visits were not simply attendance complaints. They bore on her willingness and ability to provide active supervision and care. That evidence also connected the dispositional concerns to the original allegation of inadequate supervision.
7. In re Kristin Y. and In re R.J.M.: No Mandatory Sequence of Lesser Dispositions
Syllabus point 5 of In re Kristin Y., 227 W. Va. 558, 712 S.E.2d 55 (2011), quoting syllabus point 2 of In re R.J.M., 164 W. Va. 496, 266 S.E.2d 114 (1980), permits termination without intervening less restrictive alternatives when there is no reasonable likelihood that the conditions of abuse or neglect can be substantially corrected.
These authorities defeated the proposed alternative of terminating custodial rights alone. Read alongside § 49-4-604(c)(6), they establish that courts need not first try a lesser disposition when the required statutory findings support termination. The point is not that alternatives never matter, but that the law does not require their sequential use despite evidence establishing the necessity of termination.
C. The Court’s Legal Reasoning
The mental-health argument failed procedurally and substantively
The court used two independent grounds to reject the claim that inadequate mental-health services caused the improvement period to fail. First, the claim was not preserved. Second, DHS had arranged an evaluation intended to identify appropriate needs, but the mother’s lack of candor obstructed that process. She also represented that she managed her anxiety and depression.
The reasoning was therefore about participation in assessment, not a conclusion that mental-health treatment is generally unnecessary in abuse-and-neglect proceedings. The opinion does not establish that an evaluation alone will always satisfy service obligations. Its narrower conclusion is that this record did not support blaming DHS for the absence of further tailored services.
Adjudication and disposition served different functions
The mother’s “unadjudicated issues” argument treated disposition as though it could consider only the physical condition of the home at the time of the petition. The court instead considered whether subsequent conduct demonstrated an ability and willingness to remedy the established neglect.
That distinction was supported by the mother’s acknowledgment that continued substance-use recovery would be addressed during the improvement period and by her agreement to FTC participation and its requirements. The court did not characterize a newly established psychiatric diagnosis as an independent basis for termination. It emphasized agreed services, denial of the underlying neglect, and disengagement from the children.
The decision consequently does not authorize termination on any new allegation without regard to adjudicatory safeguards. It establishes that relevant post-adjudication conduct may inform the dispositional assessment of whether established problems are reasonably correctable.
The evidence was cumulative, not dependent on one failure
The circuit court relied on multiple mutually reinforcing circumstances: declining participation, withdrawal from FTC, missed screens, dishonesty, concerns about prescription monitoring, poor visitation, and refusal to acknowledge the original neglect. Together, those findings supported the conclusion that further remediation was unlikely to succeed soon enough to protect the children.
Importantly, participation in MAT was not itself treated as proof of parental unfitness. The concerns concerned monitoring, possible medication misuse, and compliance with agreed requirements. The opinion should not be read as disapproving medication-assisted recovery as such.
Child welfare remained an independent requirement
The termination analysis did not end with unsuccessful participation. The circuit court also found termination necessary for the children’s welfare. This preserved the child-centered nature of disposition: termination was justified as a protective outcome, not merely as a sanction for disobeying program rules.