First... I did not loose custody for drug use or abuse!
I am 24 and want advice on proactive options to needed to get custody back of my 4 yr old from a very busy and over worked social services employee.

If you didn't lose custody for the offences you mention, then what did you lose custody for ? It isn't the responsibility of the social service worker to hand your child back to you. The courts have to deem you responsible again, on the recommendation of said worker, in order for that to happen. So, if you haven't got a clean slate, then it isn't going to happen.

I actually respectfully disagree with tickle. I am a former child welfare worker and I can tell you from experience that the system is well-intentioned and intrinsically flawed. I have seen many children get "stuck" in a system that often moves slower than the parents rehabilitation. There are many reasons that a child can removed from a home and believe it or not, the parents are sometimes (not often) as much a victim of the system as the child that gets caught in its web. It is not our place to question popeye but rather to support him in his efforts and hope that he is doing right as a parent (or at least as close as any of us can come to doing everything right) to get his child back.
Without knowing any specifics, the best I can say is to find a good lawyer and make nice with your case worker. A case workers goal is family reunification and they don't do this work for the big bucks it pays. They care about your child and want what's best for him/her. So show your CW that you are doing everything you can and following your service plan. During visits, interact with your child, demonstrate some of the new skills you have learned in the parenting classes that you were no doubt ordered to take. Show up early for court, dressed appropriately and be respectful to the judge.
Best of luck to you and your child. I sincerely hope that you are doing everything in the best of interest of that little one.

Thank you, mom22, for being polite in your disagreement but I know some kids fall through the cracks in cases like this and wind up in foster home after foster home, and actually never do get back home with their rightful family.

Some case workers are just to over loaded and stressed out to meet the demands imposed upon them. I just abhor the thought of some kids going back into abusive homes and not coming out again. It has happened here in Toronto.

We just done know why her child was taken from her, she hasn't actually said, only that it was not drug use or abuse, possibly for a very good reason, or possibly because of an over worked case worker, who knows. If the poster doesn't come back on and enlighten us, it will be a moot point.

It is sad to see what happens to some of the children in the foster care system. Overall it does serve the greater good, but mistakes happen-more often than I would like to think. Sometimes those mistakes are taking a child out of home that could have remained intact and putting them into a foster home which aren't perfect either. And sometimes the mistake is returning a child too soon.
Again, all I can say is that I hope popeye is doing everything possible to be the kind of parent that every child deserves.
Tickle, you are absolutely right about overworked case workers. There are far too many demands put on them and many are so very young, fresh out of college, and very inexperienced to have such emotionally tolling positions. The system needs to revamped, case workers need less of a load, foster homes need closer monitoring, and parents need more support. I probably have no right to complain since I saw the problems with the system and took the easy way out. I decided that I couldn't work for a misdirected system, especially when it was children's lives at stake. So I opted to change career directions instead of staying, learning more, and fighting harder. I just couldn't bare to see what I was seeing every day at the ripe old age of 20.