Planning for your child to come home

• Make sure you know what is in your child’s Restoration Plan and Care Plan and what you need to do.
• If you are confused or worried about the plan, talk to the case manager, or someone you trust.
• Do what you say you will do. It shows your child and other people you can be trusted and put your child’s needs first.

• Get a diary and write down the date of every contact you have, or try to have, with us or any other relevant organisation.
• Always leave your name and get the name of the person you speak to when you ring.
• Write a few points about what you talked about and any decisions made.

If you are unsure about what someone is saying to you, ask them to explain it or give you examples.

For example, if the case manager wants you to strengthen your parenting, ask them for:

• specific examples of where you should build your skills
• what you need to do.

If people use words you don’t understand, ask them to explain. You have the right to get information in a way you understand, so don’t be afraid to ask questions.

• Attend all meetings with us or the out of home care agency.
• Always work with your child’s case manager and do what they ask of you.
• You can take someone with you to the meetings who can help you understand what we're talking about and help you to be calm.
• If you can’t attend a meeting tell the case manager as soon as possible. Try to arrange another time.

• Arrive early and bring a healthy snack and activities to do with them.
• Try to do things you would be able to keep doing together at home. Remember, presents and expensive outings don’t count as much as having a good time together.
• If you can’t attend a visit, contact the case manager as soon as possible. You can ask them to arrange another time.

We encourage you to:

• get legal advice
• be represented by a lawyer or solicitor in court.

You can contact:

• Legal Aid ACT
• Aboriginal Legal Service ACT/NSW
• Women’s Legal Centre
• ACT Law Society
• Canberra Community Law.

Be careful using social media such as Facebook and Twitter to discuss your situation. We can use this in court.

We can legally use information from social media to make decisions, whether someone else provided it or it was publicly posted.

Sometimes we or the ACT Childrens Court will ask you to do drug testing. This can be voluntary or as part of your child’s Care and Protection Order.

Agreeing to regular drug tests is a good way of proving to us that you have stopped using drugs and are making positive changes.

We use the results of drug tests to help us understand your child’s possible exposure to risk or harm in your home.

We will ask you to do drug testing if we believe or suspect your drug use may be placing your child at risk of harm. Possible harm includes:

• not storing drugs safely
• not meeting your child’s physical or emotional needs because of the effect the drug has on you, or you are preoccupied with getting the drug
• not meeting your child’s needs due to money problems because of the cost of the drug
• not focusing on your child due to legal problems to do with drug misuse
• your child seeing other people affected by drugs
• your child being bullied or isolated because of your drug misuse
• your child being at increased risk of abuse by others because you are not focused on keeping your child safe.

When drug testing is part of your child’s Care Plan

We will clearly say what the expectations are. For example, the plan will say how often, where and what type of testing will happen. We will contact you by phone or in writing to tell you when you need to attend testing.

You need to show photo identification, such as a driver’s licence, when you go to a collection centre for testing. If you don’t have a licence, we can organise an identification card for you. Talk to the case manager to help you with this.

Your drug test results

We will get a report about the results of your drug test.

You and Child and Youth Protection Services can present the test results to the court in in care and protection cases.

Read more about going to court about a care and protection order.