Baker, J.
When a parent is unwilling or unable to provide help to his or her child, Indiana’s Department of Child Services can seek the “coercive intervention” of a court to compel that parent to provide help through a Child in Need of Services (CHINS) adjudication, but this intrusion of the coercive power of the State into family life is “reserved for families who cannot meet those needs without coercion—not those who merely have difficulty doing so.” In re S.D., 2 N.E.3d 1283, 1285 (Ind. 2014). Nor is that power appropriately applied to a parent who seeks reasonable care for her traumatized child, merely because that care is ultimately unsuccessful through no fault of the parent.
A.H. (Mother) appeals the juvenile court’s order finding her daughter, also initialed A.H. (Child), to be a CHINS. Mother argues that the evidence is insufficient to support the CHINS adjudication. Finding no evidence that the coercive power of the court is necessary to ensure Child receives care, we reverse.
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Likewise, in this case, we can find no evidence in the record to support a finding that Mother would not provide care to Child without the coercive intervention of the court. At the fact-finding hearing, the juvenile court itself told Mother “I don’t think you are unwilling . . . to get help.” Tr. p. 258. It also conceded, “I understand that you can’t make a seventeen year old talk to someone, that therapeutically you can’t make her open [up].” Id. at 259. It acknowledged, “DCS can’t make, wave a magic wand and help your child immediately any more than potentially what you could have and so long term this is a long road.” Id. at 260.
Instead, in making the CHINS adjudication, the juvenile court focused on a particular word of the statute: “the statute also says unable and I do think that you’ve been unable for whatever reason to get the help that your daughter needs.” Tr. p. 257.
But the statute does not simply say “unable,” it focuses on a parent’s “inability, refusal, or neglect . . . to supply the child with necessary food, clothing, shelter, medical care, education, or supervision.” I.C. § 31-34-1-1(1) (emphasis added). There is no evidence in the record that Mother failed “to supply” Child with the help she needs; there are no missed appointments with a therapist, there are no services Mother refused, there are no medications that Mother was unable to provide.
We understand DCS’s and the juvenile court’s frustration that Child has not yet recovered from the unimaginable traumas that she suffered. But unless this lack of recovery is attributable to some action or omission by Mother, the lack of recovery alone cannot support a CHINS determination.
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All of the evidence in the record, including the informal findings of the juvenile court, show that Mother is willing and able to engage with all needed services on behalf of Child. Since this is the case, there is insufficient evidence that medical care “is unlikely to be provided or accepted without the coercive intervention of the court.” I.C. § 31-34-1-1(2)(B).
The judgment of the juvenile court is reversed and remanded with instructions to vacate the CHINS adjudication.
Najam, J., concurs.
Vaidik, C.J., concurs in result.