Lenawee County — During a pretrial for child-protective petitions, attorneys and child-welfare staff discussed expanding the respondent mother’s parenting time and set conditions for that expansion, including weekly drug screening for tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) while the child is breastfeeding.

The respondent mother, Robin Hardy, currently has three four-hour visits per week; the department reported that one visit is supervised by the department and the remaining visits are supervised by the child’s paternal grandfather (the placement). Counsel for the department asked the court to consider the children’s best interests and suggested a family team meeting to evaluate whether an additional four-hour visit would be appropriate.

Ms. Conrad, the assigned foster-care worker, said she would “set up a family team meeting for anyone interested in discussing this specific thing further” and offered to do that quickly via Zoom. Ms. Conrad also requested consistent drug screens if breastfeeding opportunities were to increase: “there really needs to be, you know, at least weekly drug screens done by mom to show that the THC is no longer a concern.”

The judge addressed breastfeeding directly: “there's no breastfeeding if there's THC or any other substances in the mother's body,” and said that maintaining sobriety would be necessary for increased breastfeeding and bonding benefits. Counsel and the guardian suggested that the family team meeting could weigh whether more frequent contact would help or confuse the older child, AL.

Department investigator Megan McVay told the court a trauma assessment had been completed by a specialist for the older child and the department would start a referral with the local community mental health provider for trauma services. The court encouraged the parties to consider input from trauma and clinical assessments when evaluating parenting time changes.

The parties agreed that records of drug screens should be shared with the caseworker and that the caseworker and guardian would raise any concerns at the family team meeting. The court declined to order a change in parenting time at the pretrial but endorsed using the family team meeting, weekly screening and clinical input as the means to evaluate any expansion before the March 31 pretrial and the scheduled April trial.

Ending — The foster-care worker will set up a family team meeting by Zoom in the next few days to discuss parenting-time expansion; weekly drug screening was requested and trauma-referral steps will be initiated for the older child.