Contact With Children In Care

Care proceedings are a dramatic step which local authorities will take if they believe a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm attributable to the care which is given or likely to be given to the child by their parent(s) if the order is not made, or the child is beyond parental control.

If the local authority is able to persuade the court that it has met the relevant standard, the “threshold criteria”, the court can make a care order, although it does have other options. The child’s welfare is always the paramount concern.

While care proceedings are ongoing, interim care orders are frequently (although not inevitably) made and the child is then usually placed with a foster carer. Rarely, a child can still remain with his parents under an interim care order with the local authority keeping a close eye on the situation.

The local authority should provide reasonable contact between children and their parents. If it thinks there are exceptional reasons why children should not have contact, it will have to ask the court for authority to withhold contact. It can withhold contact for a maximum of seven days without the court’s permission if the circumstances become serious and urgent enough. Parents can object, and the court will decide what is in the child’s interest.

A Children’s Guardian will be appointed to represent the child’s interest in care proceedings and they will instruct a solicitor to act on the child’s behalf. They will have a view on whether the contact asked for is in the child’s interest. They will report the views of the child to the court. An older child may have different views on seeing their parents to the views of the Children’s Guardian. An older child with sufficient understanding may be able to instruct their solicitor without going through the Guardian. The weight that will be given to a child’s views on contact will depend on their age and maturity and how well they understand what the issues are.

When the child lives in foster care, if contact cannot be agreed with the local authority which is acceptable to the parents, they can apply to the court and the court will still decide how much contact the child should have with them.

Parents will need to persuade the court that what they want is in the child’s interest. The local authority can object and it is then up to the court to decide whether this is a case where the usual expectation of reasonable contact does not apply.

However if a final care order is made the court will also have to know what the local authority’s plans are for contact after the care order. If the local authority is planning for adoption, then contact is likely to be reduced fairly quickly and after adoption is usually by letterbox contact once or twice a year via Children’s Social Care. In appropriate cases direct contact can be arranged. However, adoptive parents cannot be compelled to agree to direct contact, or indeed indirect contact, although indirect contact is not normally a problem. All the local authority can do is try to ensure that the adoptive parents will co-operate with any plan for direct contact after adoption which is usually only once or perhaps twice a year.

Where there are problems over contact parents should always take legal advice if they are unhappy with the position. Parents still have a remedy over contact which they should use if circumstances justify it.

For further information or advice, contact John Brimble

Published 25/01/2008. The author of this article is John Brimble