VIC DHHS ignoring court orders

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Jzkm

Member
18 August 2020
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0
1
Hi, we went to childrens court because my partner suffered a first episode psychosis and was admitted to hospital. Now he lives with his mom for the time being and we went to court twice with dhhs child protective services. After first and second hearing they keep adding on conditions to the court ordered conditions. This second time they really went against it. The order said the father can see his son, including overnight contact, with the dhhs nominees (his mother and his sister have been assessed and approved by dhhs as supervisors of contact) minimum 3x a week. They paid me a visit on a friday morning with my baby, i told them i was taking him to his grandmothers place at 630 when my partner finishes work so he will sleepover there and i do a night shift. They had no qualms. 548 pm came my sister in law rang me that dhhs told her to inform me i cant bring my child to the grandmothers house for a sleepover because they need to inform the grandmother about my partners drug use in 2018 and need to assess her as they didnt know that our plans were to have overnight contact at the grandmothers house.
I feel so lost. Whats the use of going to court if they just ignore what the magistrate orders?
i have a lawyer but he is caught up with other things hasnt gotten back to me yet. And dhhs have rung me and i just want to know my rights before i call them back.
Because i messaged them why they waited til 530 pm to tell us, and why not tell me directly, and if they had additional rules why didnt they tell me when they saw me? Im in trouble at work now for it.
 

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GlassHalfFull

Well-Known Member
28 August 2018
544
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2,289
That sounds particularly complex, but my understanding is that effectively, they can't force you to do anything that the court hasn't already ordered. They have no direct powers. If their 'requests' conflict with the court orders, you don't HAVE to do them legally, however, they will likely threaten (and may well follow through with) going back to the children's court to seek further orders. I don't have any experience with the children's courts but I had a similar situation at one point. I didn't have any existing court orders but DHHS were threatening to take it to the children's court if I didn't obey them.

In my case, it was apparently a good thing I didn't disobey because I eventually resolved things (mostly) through the family court, and if DHHS had initiated children's court proceedings against me, I would have been hamstrung in initiating family court proceedings since (apparently) you cannot proceed in family court until children's court issues are resolved. That doesn't seem like it's the case for you however, since you already have a case in progress.