The father of eleven-year-old R. E. H., a girl, and nine-year-old R. C. H., a boy, appeals from a juvenile court order finding the children to be deprived, arguing that the finding of deprivation was contrary to the evidence and that the juvenile court erred by: admitting and considering certain photographs obtained during a search of the father’s home; finding that the Department of Family and Children’s Services “the Department” used reasonable efforts to avoid removal of the children; and refusing to allow the father’s counsel to obtain a copy of the forensic interviews of the children.1 We affirm, for reasons that follow. On appeal from a determination that a child is deprived we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the juvenile court’s judgment to determine whether any rational trier of fact could have found by clear and convincing evidence that the child was deprived. In so doing, this Court neither weighs evidence nor determines the credibility of witnesses; rather, we defer to the juvenile court’s fact-finding and affirm unless the appellate standard is not met.2 In December 2009, the Department received a referral alleging that in approximately December 2008, the father locked R. C. H. in a closet for two to three days without food or water, and he forced R. E. H. to touch “his private area.” When a Department investigator went to the father’s house and told him about the allegations regarding R. C. H., the father immediately turned to the children and asked them, in the presence of the investigator, whether he ever denied them food or water or locked them in a closet, and the children responded, “No.” After the investigator told the father that she usually spoke to children and parents separately, the father repeatedly asked her whether she had what she needed, and the investigator left.3 The investigator interviewed the children at their school in January 2010, at which time they denied that the father locked R. C. H. in the closet or deprived them of food or water. On February 1, 2010, the investigator, a Department case manager trainee, and a detective went to the father’s home again, but before the investigator could finish her introductions, the father “handed her a business card for his lawyer, . . . asked if they were done, and told her to get off his property.” That same day, the juvenile court entered an order permitting the Department to take the children into custody and place them in foster care.
On February 4, 2010, the Department filed a deprivation petition alleging that R. E. H. and R. C. H. were deprived because 1 an allegation had been made that the father locked R. C. H. in a closet without food or water which the children denied; 2 R. E. H. reported that the father sexually abused her; 3 both children made disclosures of physical abuse by the father; 4 the children were “extremely dirty and ill-groomed” when they were taken into custody by the Department; 5 the father demonstrated an inability to provide for the children in a safe and stable manner; and 6 the children were without proper parental supervision as required by law.
