“From the moment I had my first visit with him, I felt uncomfortable… We didn’t feel like a family. Like I was his mum, you know? I didn’t feel – I felt out of place in a way. Yeah.”
– Parent, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
– Parent, BTHKTH research
Family time are for you and your extended family to spend time with your child. They are either ‘supervised’ or ‘unsupervised.’ At the beginning, they will most likely be supervised. Family visits can include overnight stays, in person visits, video call or phone calls, messaging, letters, playing online games together, or sending photos and videos.
There are ways you can try and increase your family time, although it is easiest to do this when restoration is agreed upon.
The NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) should treat you with respect. The Practice Framework Standard 7.3 says workers need to “plan before seeing a child and their family. Consider the practice approaches, conversation tools and culturally safe responses that could be the most respectful for the family.”
“Our first access visit when they separated us, it was a 30-minute visit. We started crying and he got in our faces and yelled at us and told us if we didn’t stop crying then and there, we’d never get another visit.”
– Young person, Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research
Aboriginal parents have said that family time is about making as many memories as you can. They want other Aboriginal families to know that you will feel like time is never enough, and every time you say goodbye will hurt you and your kids, but it will be the only thing that gets you through, and the connection with your kids is the only thing that will give you any chance of more time and restoration. If they don’t come home young, at least you can try and ensure you have a relationship with them where they want to come home when they are old enough to make it happen themselves.
Family visits can be supervised by a DCJ worker or someone else like a support service worker or family member or be unsupervised. During family visits, there is usually a supervisor that will be watching how you behave and interact with your child. They will closely monitor everything and record. This information can be shared with the judge in Court.
One parent has said that DCJ required her to “…demonstrate through supervised contact visits and ongoing communication with the case worker that the knowledge, impact and experience that she has learned during the parenting courses.”
The supervisors are meant to focus on your strengths, but they can often focus on negative things when they write their reports. There are six criteria that supervisors use to judge what they consider ‘quality contact.’ The criteria are based on non-Indigenous families and the type of treatment you get can depend on which supervisor is assigned to you.
Parents that have had their family visits supervised have said it felt unnatural and made it harder to bond with their child. They also said it can be useful to form a positive relationship with the supervisors (if possible), which made family time better and was useful for the way reports were written and extra support. You might have different supervisors because of shift work.
If you find a supervisor who you get along with or who writes a good report that you think reflects your experience well, let your lawyer know. You can ask for that worker to be more involved. It can make these a more positive experience for you and your kids and help towards documents for Court. If you don’t feel comfortable with a particular one, talk to your lawyer to try and change this.
Parents that have had their family time visits supervised have said it felt unnatural and made it harder to bond with their child. Parents have said it was helpful to have family time visits outside places like DCJ offices, McDonalds or TimeZone. It might also be difficult for you to go to the DCJ office because of past experiences. You can ask to go to places of cultural or community significance instead. This could include activities like going to the park, taking them fishing, or having a BBQ.
Keeping the focus centred on your child, where you can ask if your child can have say over where they would like to spend their time with you, could help to change it to a better place. Parent’s say this is something they had to advocate for.
One parent said “They asked to do a minimum of six visits under supervision, and then offered to basically give them night stays and stuff like that, but I don’t think it eventuated to that, did it? No, I didn’t get any of that. They also said that I’d be able to eventually take them to the park, and that never happened, either. It was always in this room.”
DCJ’s Practice Framework Standard 5 says “family time, including the frequency and location, met the child’s needs for connection with their family”, with evidence for this in the Case Plan, family visit records, and Family Group Conferencing.
The activities that you propose will be assessed for safety and might mean another adult coming with you for safety ratios. You can use this to advocate for other family members to come along. Even though it is important to know what they are looking for, it can make it hard to make every minute count with your kids when you know you are being observed.
Other parents have said that they had a plan for after visits, such as seeing friends, family, or your support worker, who understand your bond with your child. They said it can be damaging for both your child and you to have to say goodbye every family time visit you have. You can suggest to the supervising worker to ride in the car on the way back to the foster home (if you are allowed to know where your child is living).
One way to stay connected during this time is to arrange for your family visits to be at a supported Playgroup. You can attend with one of your family members, and this gives both yourself and your kids time to connect with community and feel ‘normal’. This strengthens your community connections and creates an opportunity for the community to see you with your child and provide real references about your attachment with your kids, your cultural connection, and your parental capacity. Some communities have didge, dance and weaving groups for kids. These are great if you have kids who are of school age. It is also great for their connection to community and culture and helps with their own wellbeing and grounding. Be mindful that DCJ might not let the person leading a group community activity to be the supervisor of your visit, which might mean bringing a DCJ worker into a community space. This is a good time to nominate another community or family member to supervise or ask for partial supervision (contact worker takes your child to visit and picks them up, but you are technically unsupervised during the group time). This last option is often built into restoration plans.
You can request all family time files to be sent to you with the help of your lawyer. If you find that the supervisor is not being truthful or things have been twisted in their notes and it has happened multiple times, you can request to change supervisors with the help of your lawyer.
When you go to Court, the judge can ask to see all of the family time reports. You can go through these with your lawyer, and if there are lies in the family time reports, your lawyer can make this a part of your paperwork in Court. Your lawyer can send to the Court what is called an ‘affidavit,’ to show your evidence, and your descriptions of how family time has looked.
AbSec and our partners acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout NSW and their continuing connections to land, waters, and communities. We also acknowledge the lands on which these stories were told, the lands of the Dharawal, Yuin and Wonnarua people.
We acknowledge the Elders, leaders and advocates that have led the way and continue to fight for our children. We also acknowledge the Stolen Generations who never came home and the ongoing impact of government policy and practice on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, young people and families.
This website shares the experiences and advice of Aboriginal families involved in the NSW child protection system who participated in the Bring Them Home, Keep Them Home research at UNSW. We acknowledge and thank the families who generously gave permission to share their stories.
These experiences reflect what worked for those families and do not constitute advice or views of AbSec. AbSec recommends seeking independent legal advice for your own circumstances.
