Hi,

From past personal experience I initially thought docs would help you, because helping you would help the child? See my logic? I mean I worked for a government department when docs intervened in our lives (as a professional) and I work with the client on their strengths and help them achieve best outcomes in their lives. I don't lie, falsify records, I respect my clients and they know it.
well when docs intervene in families lives and docs are going on about how big and powerful they are, the parent feels helpless and thinks that docs will take over - well docs probably have already taken over by then and cut through the lives, removed children etc. So if the cso states 'we can't give you anymore access visits as the department is already stretched' well you are inclined to believe them. You feel ashamed that this is happening in your life. You are deeply sorrowful that you ever rang them in the first place. You feel that you deserve punishment. No phone call then no notification. Your sorrow is so private (noone else can share this with you to the extent you feel it) and you put on your public mask but when home alone you just sit outside and stare out to space. The deepths of your grief knows no ends. You secretly wish it was night time so you could hide from the world and go to sleep but then you're asleep it is disturbed and you wake from frightful dreams. It's like nothing you have ever experience before in your entire existance. The sorrow is so personal, and then when you finally see your child you think how can the child come to terms with this if you can't. You see the confusion on their little face. You see them trying to cope the best way they can as you see detachment in them. No smiles from the child. Just a little child with a stoney face staring straight ahead after the access visit and the bus is now reversing back. YOu are standing on the curb watching the docs bus driven off to the foster home where ever that is. YOu are deeply concerned about your child's withdrawn state and how hungry and dirty they appear.
You don't know at this stage it is all a (sick) game and this organisation lies, lies, lies and more lies. You are gullible and taking all that is thrown at you. This is a very vulnerable time of your life. You don't know that you have rights as a parent. You don't know that the department wants you to be proactive and flying to the moon and back to prove that you are a fit parent. What you did do was write out a long letter to the foster carer of how your child's routine normally goes, you write out their list of food likes and dislikes and everything you can about your child. You attach your phone number in hope that the foster carer might ring you. You send off huge bundles of clothes and toys back with the child. But of course the department don't see this as you being willing and able to protect your child.
You then find they (docs) are taking you to court again. OMG you read what they write about you that they produce on paper for the courts. Shit, am I that bad? You think it sounds like rubbish but then these people are the government so you go on a huge internal personal trip and loose a lot of self confidence. You doubt your sanity and doubt your whole existence. You shy away from friends after you tell one friend and they shun you. You think this can't be true maybe that docs worker is over worked and made a mistake you think. But somewhere you start to smell a rat earlier on as it is not quite right and even in your depths of dispair you know this to be true so you start documenting and set out to tape their mad phone calls to you. You start to realise that something is amiss. So then you end up getting a solicitor and this time, think well the solicitor will know what to do. It goes on and on and on. Your family tell you to pull out as you have remortgaged your house to pay that $20,000 legal fees. Your family is worried that you will loose your house now as well as loosing your child. You don't know what to do.
The other parent is propped up by docs and made to look like they are really nice. They quote him in their court papers as saying '....'. But at the same period of time the father is abusing you on the phone, and replaying the tape you know he is actually the one who is quite mad, as he goes on about how paranoid he is of you and other quite crazy stuff. Why did his elderly parents inform you only 1 year prior that 'he is the type that shouldn't have anything to do with women or children' and tell you they think he has schizophrenia and is quite paranoid.(Although you have always thought he warrants an axis 11 diagnosis.) He is further strengthened by docs allegations against you and ups his verbal attacks on you whenever he can. docs don't care, they side with this man. They even send the child now interstate to live with this other parent, yet your mother in this same state has voiced she would like the child to go to her. They decline by saying at 70 she is too old to be a kinship carer. They baffle not just you but your family. They even disclose your address to the father, knowing that you had moved and silently listed and so carefully sought legal aid whilst you were pregnant about what to do as you were scared for your and your unborn child's safety back then from this man. Of course the father threatens you on the phone now he knows your address - 'what ya gonna do, do you think I'm gunna get ya?' This man wrote into the courts how he had 2 jobs. that is news to you, you always knew him to be unemployed and payed $5.00 per week maintenance. What's these 2 jobs now all about? He writes how he attends church, yet you know he doesn't go anywhere. You are too embarrassed to state to the court that you were once a sunday school teacher and have been very strongly attached to the christian community as you don't feel very christian at all and feel it would be an insult to God. It's all bizarre. And in fact the magistrate states 'it is the most bizarre case I have heard' once quite a few court cases have been clocked up and you start to fight back with affidavit material and proof of what's really going on.
Eventually you get your child back. The damage is evident in many ways. Your child acts out quite seriously, even sexually in disturbing manner. You complain to docs who now send you to a child/parent interaction therapy unit (costs them nothing) and then you notice on the brochure that this clinic is targeting chidren with major behavioural disturbances. You think but there has never been a behavioural issue with this child only now since docs have moved child from pillar to post.
The father continues to say his rubbish to you any chance he can.
It just goes on.
But what did we gain from this? What good did it do for my child in this government's duty of care to protect child? What did my child gain? Oh and I forgot to tell you about how child was abused whilst in foster care. It is fully documented in hospital charts.
You then start to learn bit by bit just how docs actually should be operating but you didn't see this and in fact you experienced quite the opposite.
You start to write your complaint but it seems to go unanswered. What can you do - it is all very much a waste of time. You have to give yourself a reason why this happened to you, you have to sort it out yourself and make sense of the past year.

The above happened to me. Remember I have always being working as a mental health nurse before during and after this event. I am not legally minded at all. I come from a caring perspective so (dickhead) me thinks that docs would be caring too. It was quite disheartening to realise there are some really shonky people out there in some very powerful positions. What a betrayal.

And even recently I have feared that by posting all this stuff on the internet that docs would bash down my door and shoot me dead. I was intimidated that much. My personal life has not changed. I am not mad, bad or indifferent as docs so desperately tried to portray. My situation that I first rang them to whinge about hasn't changed. NOthing has changed so I don't understand how docs don't keep my child away from me forever!

But I am forever changed. I learnt the hard way not to trust so easily. That is not how I like to operate - I was actually brought up very christian, which in turn affects the way in which I perceive others. I like to give the benefit of the doubt.
And by being forever changed and awakened to docs dirty deals I change some of my goals in life. One now is to do whatever I can for the remainder of my life to expose docs.

If docs rolled me and my child like this. Then what are they doing to the other people who think that docs because they are the government will do the right thing by them. What a shock. Where are these people now? We want to hear from you.