Page:Canerday-Banks v. State, 2018 Ark. App. 523.pdf/26

 Finally, we note that the circuit court was also presented with troubling evidence about how DHS reached its decision to withhold consent. The Arkansas General Assembly has mandated that "the best interests of the children must be paramount and shall have precedence at every stage of juvenile court proceedings." Ark. Code Ann. § 9-28-104(a). Subsection (b) goes on to state that "[t]he best interest of the child shall be the standard for recommendations made by employees of the Department of Human Services as to whether a child should be reunited with his or her family or removed from or remain in a home wherein the child has been abused or neglected." Ark. Code Ann. § 9-28-104(b). While not directly on point, subsection (b) clearly indicates the legislature's expectation that DHS's decisions will be guided by concern for the child's best interest. Despite that mandate, Victoria Smith's testimony revealed that DHS withheld consent to the Bartons' adoption petition without reviewing the Bankses' home study, consulting the CASA, or reading the notes in P.S.'s file. There is no evidence that DHS considered the risk that the Bankses would allow P.S.'s biological parents to have access to her, a concern that the CASA repeatedly raised. Finally, while DHS's letter advising the Bartons that it would not consent to their adoption petition used the phrase "the best interest of the juvenile," neither the letter nor Victoria Smith's testimony included any substantive best-interest analysis. Under these circumstances, we see no error in the circuit court's finding that DHS unreasonably withheld consent to the Bartons' petition to adopt P.S.

For their final argument on appeal, the Bankses challenge the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the circuit court’s finding that adoption by the Bartons was in P.S.'s best interest. They rely solely on the allegations of maltreatment against the Bartons. At trial,