Key information
- If the Child Safety Service is worried about you looking after your baby or other people have worries, they can refer you to our Bringing Baby Home program with your consent.
- The program teaches you all the things you need to keep you and baby together, and safe, so that your baby doesn’t go into care.
- You will be treated with dignity, and we will help you learn how to keep your child safe.
How does it work?
In most situations, you and your baby will live in the house for up to three months where you will have 24/7 support to start with.
Here you will look after your baby with help from other people and learn what you need to keep them safe. There will be weekly care team meetings with you and everyone helping you to see how things are progressing.
If you have family or friends who can help you, we’ll include them too.
There are three services involved with Bringing Baby Home. These include:
- Child Safety Service will continue their assessment into what you and your baby need to be healthy, safe and happy
- parenting educators will teach you about parenting a new baby and different strategies to make sure your baby has everything they need
- residential workers will support you in the home 24/7 with day-to-day tasks and can support you with transport to and from appointments.
There may also be an option to participate in the program in your own home, depending on what Child Safety and you decide.
If you are living in the house that we provide, you’ll be responsible for looking after the house. You will need to purchase your food and supplies for your baby, but you won’t need to pay rent or any household bills.
We will:
- listen to you
- know what is happening for you and include you in all decision making
- be available and give information
- let you give feedback and make suggestions
- treat you with dignity and without judgement
- and make sure you know your rights and responsibilities while in the program.
If you want to leave the program, please talk to staff so we can help work out what happens next.
What next?
After the three months, or sooner depending on how you go, you and your care team will decide what will happen next, which can include you and your baby going home.
You will be involved in deciding what supports you will have after Bringing Baby Home is over.
Child Safety will help you link in with supports along the way.
Feedback from families
“Being here has been life changing. I can do so much now to look after my daughter. The encouragement from staff helped us believe we could look after our baby.”
“I have never felt so free and calm since I was a teenager, and I am proud that my baby has never been exposed to yelling or chaos. I want to live my life this way from now on. We’re on a new journey of calm and positive energy. Thank you to my worker for the opportunity, freedom and ongoing support networks to create change.”