Adoption of Cesar

Cesar was five years old when, on April 1, 1998, the Department of Social Services (department) removed him (and three older siblings) from his mother’s custody and initiated a petition for their care and protection. During the period *709preceding the petition, his mother and her then boyfriend regularly abused drugs and alcohol — and her children.

Cesar was eleven years old in early 2004 at the beginning of the trial that gave rise to the present appeal, and had been living for approximately four months with a foster family in a pre-adoptive placement.2 By that time, Cesar’s mother had moved to…