It’s very important for you to go to the presentation hearing and be on time.

• You can have your own lawyer at the presentation hearing. See also Legal Help.
• The social worker is at the presentation hearing with their lawyer.
• If your child is 12 or older, the social worker also tells your child the date of the presentation hearing. Your child can attend the presentation hearing, but they don’t have to.
• If you can’t get to the presentation hearing because you live in a remote area, or don’t have a way to get to the court, ask if you can participate by phone.
• If you live in a remote area without quick access to a court, the director may adjourn the presentation hearing to another day in the court nearest to you. The social worker then has to present the Report to Court within seven days. For more information, see The Report to Court section below.
• If you attend court by phone or videoconference, remember to dress appropriately for court, mute your phone or computer, and turn off your video until your matter is called.

If you, your child, or your child’s other parent are Indigenous, it’s important to let the social worker know. The social worker should tell your child’s community (such as the band) that they removed your child from your home and about any future court proceedings. Someone from the Indigenous community can come to the hearing.

You need to have a lawyer when you go to court. The issues are complicated. You want to make sure the judge hears your side of the case.

• If you don’t have a lawyer, get one immediately — you can apply for legal aid. If possible, do this before your court date. If you can’t do it before your court date, do it as soon as you can. See also How to apply for legal aid.
• If you haven’t had a chance to speak with a lawyer, you can ask the court to adjourn the presentation hearing until you can find one. You can also speak to family duty counsel at your local family court. See also Legal Help.

Before or at the presentation hearing, you receive a copy of the social worker’s Report to Court. At the start of the hearing, the judge asks if you agree or don’t agree with what the social worker wants to do in the Report to Court.

• If you agree, the judge makes an order right away. That’s the end of the presentation hearing. If the judge makes an order that day, they set another court date approximately six weeks later for your case to be back in court for the protection hearing. For more information, see Protection hearing.
• If you don’t agree with what’s in the Report to Court, the judge schedules another day for the presentation hearing to learn more about your case. It’s usually two to six weeks later. In many cases, it could be more than six weeks later. It depends on how busy the court is in your area. These hearings usually take half a day. But they could take longer.

If you don’t go to the presentation hearing, the judge will probably make the order the social worker asks for, without hearing from you.

The Report to Court should include this information:

• why the social worker decided to remove your child or ask for a supervision order
• what other steps the social worker tried before taking that action
• the date, time, and place of the removal
• who was there at the time
• what terms the social worker wants in a supervision order without removal. See also If your child needs protection.
• how your child will be cared for until the case is decided (called an interim plan of care)

Children aged 12 and older have the right to have this plan explained to them, and to tell the judge what they want. See also Work out a plan of care for your child.

It’s important for both you and your child to be part of making the interim plan of care. It says how your child will be cared for until your case is decided, which could take several months. If there are parts of the Report to Court you don’t agree with, tell your lawyer or the judge.

After talking about the Report to Court and interim plan of care at the presentation hearing, the social worker asks the judge for an interim order.

This order says how your child will be cared for and stays in place until the protection hearing is complete, or until the judge makes another order.

As soon as you get the application for an interim order, read the terms and conditions. If you have questions, discuss them with your lawyer or the social worker before you go to court.

The judge has the following options at the presentation hearing:

• Refuse to make an order (child with parent): If you can show you’re able to care for your child, and a protection hearing isn’t needed, the judge returns your child to live with you without supervision. This ends the court process for you and your child. This could happen if you’ve worked out an agreement with the social worker, and/​or if you’ve made changes the social worker suggested.
• Interim supervision order (child with parent): Your child lives with you, and the director supervises the care you give your child. This order includes conditions you must follow.
• Interim supervision order (child with someone else): Your child lives with another person who’s able to care for your child under the director’s supervision. This order set outs how your child will be cared for and may set out when and how you can visit your child.
• Interim custody order (child in foster care): Your child stays in the care of the director (foster care). This order may set out when and how you can visit your child.

Each interim order has the date and time of the start of the protection hearing. The protection hearing must be scheduled within 45 days of when the presentation hearing ends. See also Protection hearing.

If you and the social worker don’t agree on what’s in the interim order, the judge schedules another day for the hearing. At that hearing, the judge listens to the social worker, you, and other witnesses speak about how to make sure your child is safe and cared for until the protection hearing ends.

It’s very important you ask the social worker what they’ll do if you don’t agree to the supervision order. If you don’t agree to certain terms and conditions in the supervision order, the social worker may say they’ll remove your child.

If the social worker applied for a supervision order without removal, only two things can happen at the presentation hearing — the judge either makes a supervision order or refuses to make one. The judge can’t make a custody order or an order to have your child put in someone else’s care.

You can ask for the following things at the presentation hearing.

If the ministry removed your child, the first time you go to court for the presentation hearing may be the first chance you have to arrange access visits with your child. Ask for access at the presentation hearing. If you don’t ask then, you may have to wait several weeks before you get another chance to ask the judge for it.

The law says if you ask the judge for access, you should be given the access order, unless the judge decides it’s not in your child’s best interest to have you visit.

If you want more time to think about the interim order or apply for legal aid, you can ask for an adjournment. Although this means you have to come back to court on another day, an adjournment may give you more time to work out an agreement with the social worker.

When you’re deciding how long an adjournment to ask for, think about how often court is in your area. In bigger cities, court is usually once every week. But in some smaller communities, court is often less frequent.

If the judge adjourns the hearing, ask about access while you’re still in court. An adjournment can last for several weeks. You need to know when you can visit your child during that time.

You can also ask the social worker what happens between the court dates.

It’s a good idea to have a lawyer when you go to the protection hearing to present your case. See also Legal Help.

• Before you go to court, your lawyer can explain what’s likely to happen. Be sure you and your lawyer clearly understand what you want to ask the judge for.
• The social worker can apply for one of four types of orders. For more information, see Protection hearing. If the social worker gave you an application for a supervision order, read the terms and conditions. If you have any questions about the terms and conditions, ask your lawyer or the social worker before you go to court. If you don’t have a lawyer, you can also discuss your questions with family duty counsel at court.

Any time during the court process, you have the option to work out an agreement with the social worker, for free, through collaborative planning and decision making.

Before the judge can decide about the order the social worker applied for, the judge must first decide if your child needs protection or not.

• If you and the social worker both give written consent (agreement) about what happens at the protection hearing, then the judge doesn’t have to decide your child needs protection. This is very important. Speak to a lawyer about giving your written consent. The supervision or custody order can be made that day if everyone gives their consent.
• If you don’t agree with the application the social worker makes at the protection hearing, you can tell the judge you don’t agree. The next step is to have a case conference.

If you can’t reach an agreement with the social worker by the protection hearing, the judge orders you to go to a case conference. If you (or your lawyer) ask in writing to see information from the director’s files, you should get that information before the case conference.

• A case conference is a lot like mediation except the judge is in charge instead of a mediator and the case conference usually takes less time. It’s a meeting with you, your lawyer or advocate, the social worker and their lawyer, and the judge. If your child is Indigenous, a representative of the Indigenous community may also be there. For more information, see Collaborative planning and decision making.
• Be prepared to speak for yourself at a case conference. Judges usually want to hear directly from the parents. You may want to discuss what to say with your lawyer beforehand. The social worker can’t use what you say at the case conference against you in court. However, the social worker can try to use what you say to find out more information to use at a hearing.

Supervision orders or custody orders can’t be made at the case conference unless everyone agrees. If you work out an agreement with the social worker in the case conference, the judge can make a consent order. That ends the protection hearing.

You can make a consent order with the social worker after a case conference or at any time during the protection hearing process.

If you and the social worker agree on a plan of care for your child, you can make a written agreement for one of the orders the judge may make. The judge then makes a consent order and doesn’t have to decide your child needs protection.

• The court won’t have in its records that you couldn’t care for your child or your child needed protection.
• If your child is 12 or older, they have the right to be part of the discussion about a consent order. If possible, get legal advice for your child. See also Legal Help.

In most cases, both parents have to agree before the judge can make a consent order. Get legal advice before you agree to a consent order.

If you weren’t able to come to an agreement with the social worker at the case conference, the judge arranges for a protection hearing. The hearing will likely take a day or more to complete.

At the hearing, the judge must hear evidence and witnesses before making (or refusing to make) the application the social worker asked for. The judge decides if your child needs protection, makes one of the following orders, and decides how long the order lasts.

• Temporary supervision order (child with parent): Your child lives with you, and the director supervises the care you give your child.
• Temporary supervision order (child with someone else): Your child lives with another person who can care for your child under the director’s supervision.
• Temporary custody order (child in foster care): Your child stays in the care of the director (foster care).
• Permanent transfer of custody to someone else: Your child stays in the permanent care of another person.
• Continuing custody order (child in foster care): If a serious problem exists and can’t be fixed within the time the court allows, the judge may make this order. It means your child stays in the care of the director (foster care) without limits on how long this lasts. By the time the matter is at this stage, parents usually have tried to work out other options for their children’s care, and judges don’t make this order as often.

The judge includes terms and conditions in the supervision order, and whether you get an access order and what’s in the access order if your child isn’t with you.

Supervision orders and custody orders are made for a specific time, called a fixed term. The length of the fixed term is based on your child’s age at the time of the removal, or the youngest child’s age if there’s more than one child. If your child is:

• under five, the order can last for up to three months
• five to under 12, the order can last for up to six months
• 12 or older, the order can last for up to 12 months

If a child is under a continuing custody order, get legal advice to:

• have the order cancelled,
• get access to the child,
• have the child adopted,
• appeal court decisions (see below), or
• permanently transfer custody of the child to someone else.

See also Legal Help.

You may be able to appeal a custody order if you think it’s unfair — that is, you can ask another judge to decide if the order is fair.

If you want to appeal a decision, get legal advice immediately because you have only 30 days after a protection hearing to appeal an order. These time limits are very strict.

You can also apply to change an order if you make big changes in your life. This is different from appealing an order. For example, you may have had counselling that helped you with an anger problem or an addiction. Or you may have changed your housing or left an abusive relationship. If you made a life change, you can ask to change an order any time after the judge makes it. Get a lawyer’s help to do this.

A judge considers your application and decides whether to make a new order or leave it the way it is.