Maintaining family connections

Sections on this page:

• The importance of family connections
• Family contact decision making
• Your role in supporting family connections
• Requests to change contact arrangements
• Sibling connections

Family contact is primarily about the child’s needs and their right to have opportunities to develop and maintain an attachment and connection with family members and significant others when they are in care. Child Safety is committed to ensuring that positive and meaningful contact occurs between children in care and their families, unless this poses a significant risk to the child and restrictions to contact are required.

Connecting with family is much more than just meetings between the child in care and their parents. Family contact is considerably broader than this and extends to the child’s wider family circle, and may include the child’s siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Some children in care also benefit from contact with others in their network who are of significance, such as Elders and community members, family friends and neighbours.

There are a range of mediums that enables direct or indirect communications with the child’s family members and significant others, such as meetings, outings, visits to the family home, telephone calls, FaceTime, social media messenger services, email, letters and so on. For some children, contact may need to be supervised for safety reasons, or for a specific time-limited purpose, like an assessment of interactions between the child and the parent.

The importance of family connections

Many children in care will think about their families every day. They tell us that continued contact with their family has a positive impact on how they see themselves, and their sense of self value and identity.

For a child who is on a short term child protection order, continued connections with family and other familiar people is likely to:

• ease the child’s feelings of grief, loss and abandonment
• reassure the child that their family and community members are okay
• keep parents updated about their child’s progress
• maintain their emotional bonds with people of significance to them
• promote the likelihood of reunification
• help the child to adjust to their care arrangement.

For a child on a long term child protection order, or a permanent care order the continuity of relationships with family, friends and other significant people, can help to:

• provide the child with a greater sense of their own origins and family history
• promote positive identity development and resilience
• reduce idealisation of their parents and enable the development of realistic expectations
• provide another layer of support for the child
• instil a sense of belonging and certainty
• assist with the child’s transition when they leave care.

Family contact decision making

Family contact decisions can be made by:

• the Childrens Court
• the Family Court of Australia
• Child Safety
• the Permanent Guardian.

We must comply with contact arrangements directed by the Childrens Court or Family Court.

The Child Safety senior team leader is delegated to make decisions about family contact, such as the frequency and type of contact, and decisions about placing conditions or restrictions to contact, or refusing contact. There are likely to be different decisions for different family and/or community members.

Family contact arrangements reflect the case plan goal, and are usually discussed during the development of the child’s case plan. The detailed arrangements and schedules are recorded in the child’s case plan. As the child’s needs change according to their age and developmental stage, the family contact arrangements will be revised at each case plan review.

For children or young people who are subject to a permanent care order, contact arrangements would have been negotiated prior to the making of the child protection order. The guardian and the child’s parents or family members would have agreed on the type and frequency of contact so as to maintain a child’s connection to their family and community.

Permanent guardians would have been assessed as being able to facilitate family contact for the child, without the support of Child Safety, and would be aware of their obligations as guardian to maintain family connections for the child. Contact arrangements should be maintained unless the permanent guardian can demonstrate that doing so places the child at risk or is not in the child’s best interest.

Your role in supporting family connections

Your participation or role in family contact will be negotiated with you and documented in the case plan and placement agreement. This might include assisting with transport arrangements or supervision of family contact, and only where you are able to do this and agree to the proposed plan.

As a carer, you are often in the best position to help a child in care before, during and/or following family contact. We recommend you:

• be positive when discussing and preparing for family contact
• allow the child to take photos, drawings or school reports they can share with family
• help the child to plan for a family contact by thinking of things they can do, share, talk about and what to expect
• support the child to send birthday, mothers’ day, fathers’ day and Christmas cards to family members (if appropriate) outside of family contact times
• spend time with the child following family contact and encourage them to express their feelings, without pressuring them to do so
• accept that contact may cause the child to revisit feelings of anger, sadness and confusion
• upload photos of positive family contact experiences to the child’s kicbox, to ensure the child maintains access to their memories and experiences
• advise the Child Safety Officer (CSO) of any issues or worries that arise during contact, including any inappropriate behaviour or conversations, or concerns about harm or risk of harm to the child.

Requests to change contact arrangements

Making and implementing arrangements for family contact can involve practical and emotional challenges for you, the child, their families and CSOs. Sometimes it may be necessary to change family contact arrangements. A change can be requested by any of these parties. Where the needs of adults are in conflict with the child’s interests, then decision making must favour the child’s needs and interests, both in the short and long-term.

You can make changes to contact arrangements, where the changes are minor and consistent with the case plan goals, and are able to be accommodated by those involved in the arrangement. Any request to make new decisions or to vary arrangements which substantially conflicts with the agreed case plan or are likely to result in significant issues for the child, then the Child Safety senior team leader will make the decision.

When significant changes to the family contact arrangements are being considered by Child Safety, outside of the regular case plan review, you will have the opportunity to contribute your views about the proposed change, as it may impact on other commitments made by you on behalf of the child, or it may conflict with your availability to assist and support the proposed arrangements.

For children or young people who are subject to a permanent care order, contact arrangements would have been negotiated prior to the making of the child protection order. The guardian and the child’s parents or family members would have agreed on the type and frequency of contact so as to maintain a child’s connection to their family and community. Any change to these contact arrangements should be negotiated between parties.

For permanent guardians, if they change contact agreements and the child or a child’s family member are not satisfied with these changes, they may contact Child Safety and make a complaint that the guardian is not complying with their obligations. The permanent guardian or the child may also request a change to contact arrangements by requesting a review of the case plan.

Sibling connections

For siblings who are separated in care, contact is an important means of sustaining their relationship, enabling them to stay ‘familiar ‘with each other and remain ‘close’ despite no longer living together. The genogram of the child’s family, developed by Child Safety, will identify the child’s biological and non-biological siblings. The child’s view about who they want to maintain contact with will be sought by the CSO.

Children in care tell us that sibling contact is important to them, and that siblings form a significant part of a child’s social network. Positive sibling contact is widely recognised as beneficial to a child’s happiness, and assists in the development and maintenance of self-esteem, identity, permanence and love.

CSOs and carers play a key role in the facilitation of contact between siblings, and these plans will be incorporated into the child’s case plan.

If you require any further information about the legislative changes as they relate to permanency and the permanent care order, refer to the document ‘Frequently Asked Questions for carer and care services’ on the Child Safety legislation page.