Child Protection Issues

It is Better to Work With Children’s Services

It is better to work with Children’s Services so that you can look at the concerns with them and try to make improvements to avoid any further action being taken.

If you are arrested, this could lead to the police making a referral to Children’s Services to alert them to any child safety issues. We have links to firms that can assist with any criminal proceedings and we can advise you of the impact this could have on the children in your care.

If the Local Authority has concerns about your child, then they may start an investigation and there may then be an initial child protection conference. After a conference takes place the Local Authority may make a plan to keep the child safe. This will detail the concerns and how they can be resolved.

A number of professionals with information about the child will give their views as to whether such a plan is necessary.  You may find that services are offered to support your child and the family as a whole and this can be helpful. Once a plan is in place there will be review conferences every 3 to 6 months. There will also be CORE group meetings the first of which will be within ten days of the conference.  We can assist you with any queries or concerns you may have during this period.

Special Guardianship Orders

A Special Guardianship Order (SGO) is an order that appoints one or more individuals to be a child’s special guardian. An SGO confers parental responsibility on the special guardian. SGO’s have been described as a ‘half-way house’ between child arrangements orders and adoption orders. An SGO is an alternative to adoption in cases where adoption may not be the best solution for a child who cannot live with their birth parents, such as older children in long-term care who might wish to retain some legal ties with their birth families and who don’t want to be adopted. A parent cannot be a special guardian. An SGO confers parental responsibility on the applicant. Parental responsibility can be exercised by a special guardian to the exclusion of any other person with parental responsibility (apart from another special guardian) as long as there is no other court order in place.

The court cannot make an SGO unless it has received a report from the local authority. The applicant must give the local authority three months’ notice in writing of their intention to apply for an SGO and, once the report has been received, the application can be made to court.

An SGO will continue until the child reaches 18 unless discharged sooner. An SGO may be varied or discharged by the court on an application made by either parent although they are extremely hard applications which invariably fail. The parents would need to demonstrate a prolonged change in circumstance as well as that it would be in the child’s best interests for an SGO to be discharged, which can be very difficult to demonstrate.

We frequently advise and assist kinship carers who are already caring for children of their family or family members seeking to care for a child within court proceedings where there has been either a positive or negative viability assessment.