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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 2-315 / 12-0412 Filed May 23, 2012

IN THE INTEREST OF A.V., Minor Child, B.V., Father, Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Rachael E. Seymour, District Associate Judge.

A father appeals the termination of his parental rights. AFFIRMED.

Barbara O. Hoffman, Des Moines, for appellant father. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Bruce Kempkes, Assistant Attorney General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and Cory McClure and Jennifer Galloway, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee State. Jared Harmon of Carr & Wright, P.L.C., Des Moines, for appellee mother. Nicole Garbis-Nolan of Youth Law Center, Des Moines, attorney and guardian ad litem for minor child.

Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Doyle and Danilson, JJ.

2 VAITHESWARAN, P.J. A father appeals the termination of his parental rights to his son, born in 2008. He takes issue with the district court's findings that (1) "[he] failed to demonstrate long-term sobriety and an understanding of his sex offending behaviors" and (2) "it was not in [the child's] best interest to continue the termination proceedings so that [the child] may be reunified with [him]." I. The father has a criminal history that includes sexual abuse of two fourteen-year-old girls as well as drug abuse. His child was removed from his custody in November 2009 based on evidence of drug use in the home. The child was placed with relatives, where he remained throughout the proceedings. The father exercised supervised visits with the child and participated in other services, including drug testing and sexual offender evaluations. Iowa

Department of Human Services employees noted sufficient progress that they initially declined to recommend termination of the father's parental rights. The child's guardian ad litem disagreed with the department's stance and filed her own petition to terminate the father's parental rights. Following the final day of a several-day termination hearing, the State advised the court that it too agreed with termination. The State elected not to proceed with its own termination

petition but to support the guardian ad litem's petition. The district court determined that the child could not be returned to the father's custody. See Iowa Code

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