Following an evidentiary hearing, the juvenile court determined that C. B., a minor child, is deprived. The father of the child appeals, contending that the juvenile court erred at the evidentiary hearing by admitting hearsay evidence and by taking judicial notice of prior proceedings and orders concerning the same child without, the father says, giving him sufficient notice of its intent to do so. The father also claims that insufficient evidence was adduced at the hearing to sustain the finding of deprivation. The record on appeal, however, does not reveal any reversible error, and for this reason, we affirm. 1. We turn first to the contention that the juvenile court erred at the hearing by admitting hearsay evidence. The father made several objections at the hearing, including some on hearsay grounds, and many of these objections were sustained by the juvenile court. Although a few objections were overruled, the father does not specify the overruling of any particular objection as error. Instead, the father complains on appeal that the juvenile court allowed a case worker employed with the Cherokee County Department of Family and Children’s Services DFACS to testify about facts of which her knowledge was based exclusively, the father claims, upon her review of records contained in a DFACS case file. But the father made no timely objection to this testimony below, and because he did not, he failed to preserve any error in admitting the testimony for our review. See In the Interest of A. K., 272 Ga. App. 429, 435 1 b 612 SE2d 581 2005; In the Interest of H. D. M., 241 Ga. App. 805, 808 2 527 SE2d 633 2000. For this reason, the contention that the juvenile court erred at the hearing by admitting hearsay evidence affords no basis for us to reverse the decision below.
The father says that, even if he failed to preserve the admission of hearsay evidence for review on appeal by a timely objection below, hearsay has no probative value, and we, therefore, cannot consider it when we assess whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain a finding of deprivation. That may be true enough, see In the Interest of J. C., 242 Ga. 737, 740 3 251 SE2d 299 1978, but it does not help the father here. From our review of the record, whether most of the testimony about which the father complains is, in fact, hearsay is uncertain.1 It may be true, as the father claims, that the case worker knew about certain facts to which she testified only because she read about them in a case file. But the father did not object to this testimony, did not voir dire the case worker about the basis of her knowledge of these facts, and did not later cross-examine the case worker about the basis of her knowledge. For all we know, the case worker had personal and direct knowledge of these facts. When a witness testifies without objection about a specific fact, we will not deem it hearsay and without probative value unless it appears clearly from the record that the witness’s knowledge of this fact is based exclusively upon what she was told or what she read.2 See In the Interest of C. M., 258 Ga. App. 387, 388 2 574 SE2d 433 2002 “We will not presume the trial court committed error where that fact does not affirmatively appear in the record.”
