In re Delilah G.

Syllabus

The respondent mother appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court terminating her parental rights with respect to her minor daughter, D. The petitioner father and the mother had married while he was in the United States Navy in California. After his deployment to the east coast, he and the mother divorced in 2014, and the mother was granted physical custody of D and the father was granted visitation rights. After a separate custody trial in the District of Columbia, the court granted the father physical custody of D and visitation rights to the mother. In 2015, after the father married S, a court in Maryland modified the custody and visitation order, permitting the father to move to Connecticut. The mother's last visit with D occurred in 2017, before the father moved to Connecticut and the mother moved back to Califor- nia. Twice while the father, S and D lived in Connecticut, the Navy deployed him for periods of approximately six months at sea, which the mother claimed interfered with her ability to establish a relationship with D. In 2018, D began behavioral health treatment with L, an advanced practice registered nurse. In March, 2018, the Superior Court in Norwich held a hearing on a motion the father had filed to modify the Maryland custody and visitation order. After a hearing, which the mother did not attend, the court ordered that the father would maintain sole legal and physical custody of D and that the mother would be permitted to visit D at the father's discretion upon proof of substance abuse counseling, completion of a parenting course and reunification therapy. The father then filed a petition to terminate the mother's parental rights with respect to D on, inter alia, the statutory (§ 45a-717 (g) (2) (C)) ground that she had no ongoing parent-child relationship with D. Prior to trial, the Department of Children and Families completed a social study in which it recommended termination of the mother's parental rights. The trial court, in