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[no_hypocrisy]

4. It was beyond "plausible". It was compelling.

You don't recognize how much progress this woman made.

She was nearly non-responsive, disheveled, and catatonic when she first came to us. We helped her find proper medical and psychological assistance. She went home to her parents to heal. She only had the goal of getting her children back to motivate her to keep trying despite the odds against us. The Division was working against her. Her estranged (then ex) husband was working against her. She knew she had to change and she did.

We advised her every step of the way how daunting it would be to raise five children as a single mother without alimony and/or child support. As things stand right now, our client has a good chance of making more money than I do.

The kids are coming home to their mother -- and grandmother, their step-grandfather, their step-aunt, and a lot of friends and neighbors in their community.

And to answer your other question, there are four issues to be resolved in a termination of parental rights: 1) Has the "harm" (abuse/neglect) been removed? 2) Did the parent cause the harm or will continue to harm the child(ren)? 3) Did the Division make "reasonable efforts" to reunify the children with their parents? and 4) Would returning the child(ren) to the parents do more harm than allowing them to stay with the foster parents? These questions overlap and are really components of a large whole. They all boil down to the best interests of the child coupled with a parent's constitutional and fundamental right to parent his/her own child.