Enabling Family Time: A guide for children and young people
Enabling Family Time is a plan of family time where you meet with your parent who you don’t live with or another adult that is important to you in a safe and comfortable place, most likely at a family time centre.
A family time centre is a safe and friendly place where children can spend time with their parents or family members when they are not living together. The centre helps children maintain important family relationships and provides support to make visits positive and comfortable for everyone. You may also meet at another safe and comfortable place that is somewhere within your community.
You will also meet a family time worker – a person that works in the family time centre who will be there to help you feel comfortable, safe and supported. They will help make sure your family time is going well and that your views and wishes are heard.
What you need to do during the family time meeting:
- Just be yourself
- You can talk to the family time worker at any time
- You can say or write down how you are feeling – it's important we know and can help
- You can leave at any time you want
The people who will be there at the meeting:
- You
- Your brother/s or sister/s if you have any and if everyone agrees
- Your parent/another adult that is important to you
- A family time worker – a friendly adult whose job is to look after everyone during the visit. They are there to help things go smoothly
What is expected from your parent / another adult that is important to you
Your parent / another adult that is important to you will be asked to:
- Be kind, calm, and ready to spend positive time with you
- Follow the rules that help keep everyone safe
- Focus on having a nice time together
- Talk about things that make you feel happy
Things that can happen during the meeting
You can:
- Play games
- Do crafts
- Read books
- Talk
- Spend time together in a safe and calm way
You can always tell the family worker what you would like to do, or if you need a break, feel unsure, or want to do something different. The time you spend at the meeting will help you build relationships with your parent or another adult that is important to you.
After the family time meetings
You could have up to 3 meetings of family time. After completing all of the meetings, we will send your parent / another adult that is important to you a short questionnaire for you to tell us what you felt about the family time you had. Your Family Court Adviser (FCA) will likely come to see you again and speak with the adults to see if anything has changed since the family time sessions. You can ask your FCA to help you complete the questionnaire too if you need some help.
Following this, the FCA will report back to the court and attend another court hearing where they will tell them how the meetings went. This will help the court to come to a decision about your future family time.
The FCA will always tell the court your wishes and feelings, what keeps you safe, and what is best for you.
