OLR Report 2012-R-0103 provides information on child neglect cases where Connecticut courts affirmed the use of the “predictive neglect” doctrine and removed a child from a parent's custody based on that parent's mental illness.
By law, the Department of Children and Families (DCF) can remove children from their parents' custody and move to terminate parental rights if it believes the children have been neglected. Predictive neglect is a common-law doctrine that the state's child welfare system uses to determine whether neglect has occurred on the basis of conditions that are “injurious to the child's well-being.” Under this doctrine, the child has not been harmed; rather, there is an allegation that the child could be harmed in the future. DCF has regularly relied on the predictive neglect doctrine to both (1) remove children from their parents' custody and (2) terminate parental rights.
DCF policy establishes factors that could constitute predictive neglect. Although the policy does not include a parent's unstable mental health as one such factor, DCF has routinely pointed to such as grounds for removing children from their parents' custody. Likewise, the courts have regularly affirmed these cases and have upheld DCF's removal. In these cases, the courts have insisted that the parties petitioning for removal meet a burden of proof threshold.
For more information on this, read the full report.
