Your child’s social worker should encourage and support contact between you and your child and your child’s other parent, relatives (including grandparents and brothers and sisters) and friends unless it’s not practical or in your child’s best interests.
- Contact can mean visits, overnight stays, letters, phone calls, texts etc.
- Contact arrangements should be made after asking your child, you and other family members how they feel about contact, and what they would like.
- Contact arrangements should be written in the care plan and reviewed when the plans for your child are reviewed.
The social worker should assess your child’s contact needs when they are first looked after and make arrangements for them to see you and other members of the family. However, if they have not discussed it with you, you should get in touch with your social worker and say who you think your child should see and how often.
Frequently Asked Questions
I am not happy with the amount of contact I am being given with my child. What should I do?
My child doesn’t want contact with me. What should I do?
My child wants contact with other relatives and friends, should this be possible?
Can I get help with the costs of contact, such as transport and activities, as these are expensive?
The contact arrangements are really inconvenient for me and the social worker won’t change them. What should I do?
The social worker says the contact has to be supervised and I’m not happy about this.
View FAQS for mothers experiencing domestic violence.
