Deprivation – Georgia Case Law Update

On February 23, 2009, the Georgia Court of Appeals affirmed the Dekalb county juvenile court’s deprivation ruling in In the Interest of N.H. (A08A1759). During the course of DFCS’ investigation of a teenage mother and her child which raised significant concerns, the DFCS case worker secured the services of a parenting support company to instruct the mother on what to feed infants and,generally, how to care for infants. During the parenting specialist’s visit to the home, she noted that the mother fed the infant inappropriate food despite instruction that it was inappropriate.As a result of the investigation, the juvenile court found that the mother “had intellectual limitations evidenced by her continued improper feeding of the child.” Despite the mother’s objection to the deprivation finding because the parenting specialist assigned by DFCS only visited the home once, the Court of Appeals found the evidence sufficient to support a finding of deprivation.