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Within three workdays of your child being removed, the caseworker must provide a care application to the Children’s Court. The caseworker must give you a copy of the application. It will have the time, date and location of your first court appearance.
It is very important that you go to the court on this day.
If you think it will be hard for you to go, or you can’t get there, let the caseworker know so they can help.
Try to have someone in court to support you. It is normal to feel emotional before and after court. Think about how to take care of yourself before you go to court.
Learn more about what you can do to take care of yourself.
The care application outlines why DCJ believes your child needed to be taken from your care. The application is about you and your family, and it may be hard to read the things that DCJ believe about the safety of your child. You may wish to have the caseworker, or a support person read it with you.
On the first day at court, you will be helped by a duty lawyer from Legal Aid NSW if you do not have your own lawyer. After the first day, you need to get your own lawyer:
Every child has an independent lawyer allocated to them. The lawyer is there to represent what is best for your child. They will talk to your child about what they want and tell the court your child’s wishes. The lawyer will be either a direct representative and take instructions from your child if they are 12 or older, or they will be a separate representative who will give the court an opinion on what is in your child’s best interests.
On the first day of court, you, the magistrate, DCJ and each lawyer will share their views about who should be able to make decisions about your child. This is called interim (short term) parental responsibility. A lawyer for DCJ will explain to the court why the safety assessment found that your child is unsafe and needs to be in care.
The magistrate may disagree with DCJ and return your child to you. Or they may order that your child stay in care so the court can get more information about how safe it would be for them to go home to you. This is called an ‘interim order’. This means the Minister for Families and Communities or another suitable person has parental responsibility for your child. If the minister has parental responsibility, this means a caseworker makes decisions for your child, alongside their manager, like where they will stay, in the short term.
If an interim order is put in place, the court will set a time for you to come back. This may be to either hear more information or to see what you and the caseworkers have done to make it safer for your child to come home. The court may ask your lawyer to provide an affidavit. This is a written document setting out what you say is true about the situation and your child. It is your chance to tell the court your side of the story, and how you can, and will continue, to keep your child safe.
DCJ must be model litigants. This means they must tell the court fairly and honestly about their worries and your family’s strengths. You get the chance to tell your side of the story too. After the first day at court, you should meet with your lawyer as soon as possible to talk about what DCJ has said to the court. Decide if you want to tell the court what you think about the worries DCJ set out and what has happened from your point of view. This process is called filing an affidavit.
If your child needs to stay in care during court proceedings, DCJ must give the court a care plan. The care plan says whether the caseworker believes there is a possibility your child can come home to you. If the care plan does say this, it will also tell you how long you have to make the necessary changes.
Returning a child home to their parents is always the first option, but if that is not safely possible, long-term family or kinship care, guardianship, foster care or open adoption will be considered.
05 Jul 2024