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Section 161.001(f) Reasonable Efforts Sufficiency | In the Interest of P.G. (2026)

Thomas Daley
New Texas Court of Appeals Opinion - Analyzed for Family Law Attorneys

In the Interest of P.G., A Child, 11-26-00074-CV, September 03, 2026.

On appeal from 326th District Court, Taylor County, Texas

Synopsis

The Eleventh Court of Appeals held that legally and factually sufficient evidence supported the Section 161.001(f) finding that the Department made reasonable efforts to return the child before final hearing, but a continuing danger prevented reunification. The court treated the Department’s service plan, drug testing, counseling and parenting referrals, and visitation opportunities as sufficient reasonable efforts where the mother remained unstable, missed most visits, and tested positive for methamphetamine during the case; together with the best-interest finding under Section 161.001(b)(2), termination was affirmed.

Relevance to Family Law

Although this is a termination case, its practical reach extends well beyond CPS litigation. For Texas family law litigators handling SAPCRs, modifications, supervised possession disputes, geographic restrictions, and conservatorship contests involving substance abuse or instability, P.G. is a useful appellate statement on what courts will regard as meaningful reunification efforts and what evidence will support a continuing-danger finding at the final hearing. It also reinforces a broader strategic point that carries into divorce and custody cases: partial service-plan compliance does not outweigh ongoing drug use, inconsistent contact with the child, unstable housing, or the absence of a realistic childcare and reunification plan.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The case arose after the mother gave birth to P.G. in March 2025. Just before delivery, while in Abilene for work as a truck driver, she used methamphetamine and both she and the newborn tested positive at birth. The Department obtained temporary managing conservatorship the next day and placed the child in an adoptive foster home, where the child remained through trial.

After removal, the Department created a family service plan that the trial court adopted as an order. The mother was required to submit to random drug testing, remain drug-free, participate in counseling, complete parenting classes, attend visitation, maintain employment, and secure safe, stable, drug-free housing. She did complete some services, including counseling, parenting classes, and psychological and substance-abuse assessments. She also maintained at least intermittent employment.

But the record also showed significant instability throughout the case. The mother lived in multiple states, did not attend court settings other than the final hearing, and by trial had only recently been living in a camper in Bastrop. Her visitation was, in the Department’s words, “very sporadic.” She reduced weekly visits to every other week and attended only eight of twenty-eight scheduled visits, with her last visit occurring in early January 2026. Most importantly, although she initially tested negative during the case, in January 2026 both her urinalysis and hair-follicle tests were positive for methamphetamine.

At final hearing, the mother admitted methamphetamine use the day before the child’s birth, while insisting she had used only once and could not explain the later positive tests. She also lacked a concrete reunification plan: while she continued traveling for work, she proposed that her boss’s wife would care for the child until she decided what she wanted to do long term. By contrast, the Department presented evidence that the child was thriving in the foster placement, bonded to the family, developmentally on track, and adoptable.

Issues Decided

The court decided the following issues:

Rules Applied

The court worked from the familiar constitutional and statutory framework governing termination.

What matters most for practitioners is the court’s practical reading of “reasonable efforts.” The Department did not have to prove successful reunification efforts; it had to show meaningful, affirmative efforts directed toward return of the child. A court-ordered service plan, referrals, monitoring, drug testing, and visitation opportunities may satisfy that burden when they create a genuine path to reunification and the parent fails to use that path to demonstrate safety and stability.

Application

The court’s reasoning is useful because it did not treat service completion in the abstract as outcome-determinative. Instead, it examined whether the Department created and supervised a reunification framework and whether the mother’s conduct showed that return remained unsafe.

On the Department’s side of the ledger, the agency created a family service plan early in the case, obtained its adoption as a court order, required random drug testing, referred the mother to counseling and parenting services, required assessments, monitored compliance, and provided visitation opportunities. That package of interventions was enough, in the court’s view, to constitute reasonable efforts to return the child before final hearing.

The mother’s proof failed not because she did nothing, but because the things she did accomplish did not neutralize the evidence of continuing danger. The appellate court focused on three themes. First, the mother’s instability persisted throughout the case: she moved among multiple states, had only recently begun living in a camper, and lacked a settled long-term plan for the child. Second, her contact with the child was inconsistent. She attended only eight of twenty-eight scheduled visits and had no visitation for roughly seven weeks before the final hearing. Third, and most damaging, she tested positive for methamphetamine in January 2026 despite the case having begun with a drug-exposed newborn. That evidence allowed the trial court to infer that the same core safety threat remained unresolved at the time reunification was being considered.

The court also appears to have viewed the mother’s proposed childcare arrangement as too indefinite to support immediate return. A plan to leave the child with a boss’s wife until the parent figures out where she wants to live and work is not the kind of concrete, stable, verifiable reunification plan that defeats a continuing-danger finding. In other words, the Department’s efforts opened the door to reunification; the mother’s evidence did not show she could safely walk through it.

Holding

The Eleventh Court held that the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support the Section 161.001(f) finding. The Department’s reunification efforts were adequate because it implemented and monitored a court-ordered service plan that included drug testing, counseling, parenting-related services, and visitation opportunities. The mother’s continued instability, missed visits, and positive methamphetamine tests supplied sufficient evidence that a continuing danger prevented the child’s return before the final hearing.

The court also upheld the best-interest finding under Section 161.001(b)(2). The child had been in a stable, adoptive foster placement since removal, was thriving there, and was bonded to that family, while the mother had not shown a safe, stable, immediate reunification option. On that record, the appellate court affirmed the termination order.

Practical Application

For CPS trial lawyers, P.G. is a reminder that Section 161.001(f) should be built as a separate evidentiary track rather than treated as an afterthought. The Department will want a clean record showing when the service plan was created, how it was explained, what referrals were made, what monitoring occurred, what transportation or visitation arrangements were available, and what specific barriers to return remained unresolved as of final hearing. This case suggests that “reasonable efforts” does not require extraordinary accommodations; it requires a documented reunification pathway.

For parents’ counsel, the case is a warning against overreliance on partial compliance. Completing classes and assessments will not carry the day if the parent continues to test positive, misses substantial visitation, relocates repeatedly, or arrives at trial without a stable housing and childcare plan. The appellate posture is especially unforgiving once the Department can point to late-stage drug use after months of services.

For private family law litigators, the decision has value in high-conflict conservatorship and modification cases involving addiction or instability. While Section 161.001(f) is termination-specific, the court’s analysis mirrors how trial judges evaluate present safety in non-termination custody litigation: not by counting completed tasks, but by asking whether the parent has demonstrated current reliability, sobriety, stability, and a workable plan for the child’s day-to-day care. In that sense, P.G. can be cited conceptually when framing arguments about supervised possession, step-up access, reunification therapy, or conditions on expanded parenting time.

A few strategic lessons emerge:

Checklists

Building a Section 161.001(f) Record for the Department

Defending a Parent Against a Reasonable-Efforts / Continuing-Danger Theory

Using P.G. in Private Custody or Modification Cases

Avoiding the Mother’s Appellate Problems

Citation

In the Interest of P.G., A Child, No. 11-26-00074-CV, memorandum opinion, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Eastland Sept. 3, 2026, no pet. h.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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