If the social worker removes your child from your home or tells you about plans to remove your child:

• talk to a lawyer as soon as you can
• find out about getting free legal aid or other services if you can’t pay for a lawyer

See also Legal Help.

It’s very important for you to go to all the court hearings and the case conference, or send a lawyer to court to speak for you. See also Protection hearing.

• Going to court shows the judge you care about your child’s safety and well-being.
• If you don’t go to court and don’t send a lawyer to speak for you, the judge has to make a decision without hearing what you have to say. That decision could be more serious than if you’d gone to court to speak for yourself.

If your child goes into care, such as in a foster home, make sure you or your lawyer asks for visits with your child as soon as possible. These are often called access visits.

Keep these things in mind about access visits with your child.

• If you can’t visit your child for some reason, ask if you can phone or use the Internet to contact your child.
• Ask the social worker to help you plan visits with your child. If this isn’t possible, as soon as you go to court, ask for visits with your child.
• Try to see your child as often as you can. Access visits are important to your child. Your visits also show the social worker and judge you care about your child. If there’s another court hearing, the judge may want to see that you made an effort to stay in touch with your child.
• If you’re on time for your visits, you have a better chance to get regular access. If you have to cancel a visit, it’s important to call beforehand.
• It helps to ask for visits at times and places that are easy for you and your child to get to.
• Take things for your children to do, such as books to read, pencil crayons and colouring books, or building blocks, so they’re active and engaged during access visits.
• Depending on your children’s age and needs, take healthy snacks for them in case they get hungry during access visits.
• The social worker may say you can’t see your child alone, and you have to have supervised visits. This means a social worker or access supervisor is at your visit with your child. You may not get to see your child as often, because social workers who supervise visits aren’t always available. If that happens, you could ask for a change to let you see your child alone. You can suggest other adults you know who could supervise your visits. If the social worker still doesn’t agree, you could ask to go to mediation. See also Collaborative planning and decision making.
• Keep your own records of when you contacted your child by in-person visits, phone calls, or the Internet, so you can tell the judge.

You have a right to see the information that’s gathered about your case.

• When the court process starts, the law says the social worker has to show you the information they have about your case. What information the social worker gives you depends on where your case is at in the court process, and usually includes all of the relevant file information and social worker notes. You can’t ask for the name of the person who reported the possible abuse or neglect.
• If your case isn’t in court, you could apply to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC to get some information under a law called the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It’s best to ask in writing for the information you want, so you can prove you asked for it. Keep a copy of any letter you send.

If you believe the social worker put wrong information in your file, you have the right to ask for this to be fixed. Ask your advocate, community worker, or lawyer how to do this.

When your case goes to court, the social worker must present a plan of care. This is a plan of how your child will be cared for during the court process and possibly after the court process is over.

The social worker may not ask you what you think should be in the plan of care. But you can offer your opinion at any time. Your lawyer can help you to talk to the social worker about what you think the plan should say.

For example, you can say you want your child cared for in these ways:

• stay at the same school
• not be separated from a sister or brother
• stay within your extended family, culture, and/​or community
• make sure your cultural practices are known and respected
• have a certain diet
• have certain kinds of medical care
• be with a family of a particular religion
• be with a family who’s positive about lesbian and gay relationships

It’s also important to keep the social worker up to date about any changes you make in your life that could affect your ability to care for your child. See When a social worker contacts you for more about a safety plan and examples of the kind of information you could give to the social worker.

Children 12 and older can be involved in making a plan of care that affects them. Sometimes, they can get help from a lawyer of their own. See Legal Help for how to get legal help for children.