child stealer's at your door? questions answered

most frequent questions – answered

Types of Contact contact is the right of a child (see M v. M [1973] 2 All ER 81). There is no fundamental parental right of contact in the human rights sense, as any right of contact is always subject to the welfare of the child. The non-residential parent can apply under Section 8 of the Children Act for a contact order which is: “An order requiring the person with whom the child lives, or is to live, to allow the child to visit or stay with the person named in the order, or for that person and the child otherwise to have contact with each other.”

Direct Contact

This involves the child being together with the parent. This may be either visiting or staying. Visiting Contact This takes place at the address where the non-resident parent is living. This may range from the former domestic residence, a bedsit, the grandparents home or a temporary bed and breakfast accommodation.

Staying Contact

Where the child actually stays overnight with the non-resident parent. There is a ‘tariff’ set by the court welfare officers as to the maximum amount of time that a child ought to stay away. This can be disputed.

Interim Contact

Contact arrangements made on a temporary basis until the matter is settled at a full court hearing. Defined Contact Where the schedule of contact is determined by the court. This can be very detailed.

Reasonable Contact

Where the parties agree the level of contact. This can often be an unstable arrangement due to differing views of what is ‘reasonable’.

Supported Contact

Contact within a neutral community venue, with facilities to support the parent not living with the child (and other family members) in maintaining a meaningful relationship with them. Staff and volunteers are on hand but families are not monitored or evaluated, and reports are not made by staff following contact. Supported contact is used in cases where no welfare risks to the child have been identified.

Supervised Contact

Supervised contact is used in cases where it is believed that the child has suffered, or may suffer, harm during contact. This form of contact is typically used when a referal has been made by a public body such as the court, Cafcass or the local authority. Contact takes place in a contact centre and is supervised by a member of staff at all times, with a colleague on hand to provide assistance if required. Details of these sessions are recorded by the staff. The contact centre will be made aware of the details of your case, including relevant court papers and judgements. Supervised Contact Assessment In instances where contact has broken down, been prevented or is otherwise proving unworkable, contact centres may undertake assessments to determine an appropriate course of action. This may involve interviews with one or both parents together or separately, interviews with any other adults directly involved in contact, and wider involved agencies such as schools or health practitioners. Staff will also work with the child in a manner appropriate to their age and understanding, often without either parent present. This will form the basis for what recommendations are made for further contact.

Supported and Supervised Contact Some centres offer a combination of supported and supervised contact. Indirect Contact Indirect contact is typically used to reintroduce a parent in cases where the child has not had contact with a parent for a prolonged period of time, or where there are safety concerns surrounding direct contact. This refers to situations where face to face contact has been determined to be unsafe, unsuitable, or not in the child’s current best interests. It may take the form of letters, cards or presents, delivered through a third party such as a Cafcass officer.

Indirect contact is initially ordered for a 6 month period, with a possible extension to 12 months if this is determined to be in the child’s best interests. Escorted Contact Once contact has been established through a contact centre or elsewehere, and is determined to be regular, safe and sustainable, the child and parent may be accompanied on visits to outside activities such as parks or shops by a member of staff from that contact service. Staff arrange details such as travel arrangements and locations, and reports are provided to the local authority.

This report will include the child’s reaction, as well as assessments of the parent’s comprehension of these visits and their ability to ensure such trips are successful and benefit the child. Life Story/ Identity Contact Sometimes, a child will have little to no knowledge of their parent before contact begins. In these cases, contact staff may develop a plan to establish and improve the child’s knowledge of their parent. They will also submit a report to the Authority practitioner, outlining what actions have been taken, the child’s reactions, and what future action may be required.

Handover Most child contact centres can be used as a point where the children can be passed between parents, without them needing to come into contact together. The parent who the child lives with can drop the child off with the centre staff and/or volunteers, from where the parent not living with the child will pick the child up, and return them at the end of the visit. In some instances, it may be possible for pick ups to be made and one centre, and delivery in a different centre or location.

Enforcement

Residence

Orders

(including shared Residence Orders) may be enforced by application to the court. Under section 34 of the Family Law Act 1986 the court can order any person in breach to produce the child to the person with the Residence Order, or empower an officer of the court or a police constable to take charge of and hand over the child.

A daily fine can be imposed while the breach continues, and committal to prison is also an option (though a rarely used one). Contact Orders can also (in theory) be enforced in the following ways: By imposing a fine on the obstructive parent By committing the obstructive parent to prison for contempt By making a residence order in favour of the contact parent

By empowering an officer of the court to take the child to contact Enforcement of Contact Orders is, however, extremely rare. Fining the obstructive parent is generally considered to impact upon the welfare of the child, jailing a parent is similarly frowned upon, and transfer of residence is all but unheard of. The final option – sending an officer of the court (or police constable) to take the child to contact – simply never happens.

The court has no power to order the obstructive parent to undertake Community Service. In effect, the judiciary is generally unwilling to enforce its own orders where they are for contact between child and father (though members of the public are routinely jailed in other circumstances, e.g. non-payment of the television licence fee).

Faced with obstruction, a father who has endured the court process (with the consequent financial and emotional costs) may find that his Contact Order is not worth the paper it is printed on. The only option, however, is for the father to return to court and request that a penal notice be attached to the Contact Order – he is placed in the difficult position of asking the court to consider committing the mother of his children to prison, and may face criticism for doing so.

It is not unknown in these circumstances for the court to make an order for ‘no contact’ as a means of dealing with the problem. The attitude of the judiciary to the enforcement of Contact Orders is exemplified by the words of Lord Justice Ormrod in Ansak v Ansak [1977] Fam 138: “Committal orders are remedies of last resort; in family cases they should be the very last resort. They are likely to damage complainant spouses almost as much as offending spouses, for example by alienating the children. Such orders should be made very reluctantly and only when every other effort to bring the situation under control has failed or is almost certain to fail.” Lord Justice Ormrod expanded upon this in Churchard v Churchard [1984] FLR 635: “There is no doubt and it should be clearly understood…throughout the legal profession that an application to commit for breach of orders relating to access (and I limit my comments to breaches of orders relating to access) are inevitably futile and should not be made. The damage which they cause is appalling…

” Nothing has changed since the introduction of the Children Act 1989 – the fourth annual report of the Children Act Advisory Committee concluded that: “…attachment of a penal notice to a contact order…or proceedings towards committal, will rarely – if ever – be in the interests of a child.”

More recently, in In re M (a Minor)(Contact order: Committal) the Court of Appeal ruled that: “There was an almost inevitable risk that the committal proceedings might themselves exacerbate the poor relationship between children and father and so hinder not help contact.” Readers of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 may appreciate the logic involved. Read the Law Report of In re M (31 December 1998). Read Enforcing Contact Orders by Ian Mackay (first published in McKenzie 43, December 1999). what is a section 47 investigation?

a section 47 investigation is where social services respond to a referral to them by a third party regards you and your children. social services have a legal obligation to investigate all serious allegations, unless it can be shown the referral is a maliciously made referral. what is a police protection order?

a police protection order is where a social worker asks the police to take your child into police authority care, (though in reality the child goes into local authority care), or the police can order the child into their care if found, arrested or after a death of parents etc. This can only exist for 72 hours.

what is a emergency protection order?The local authority may apply for an Emergency Protection Order (EPO) for up to eight days. These applications are made in the family proceedings court before magistrates and the court must be satisfied that such an order is required because there is reasonable cause to believe that a child is likely to suffer significant harm if he or she is not removed to local authority accommodation. The court is also required to consider whether the order is necessary in the best interests of the child and in so doing it must balance the need for protection of the child with the potential damage caused by the trauma of removal from parents or carers. An application for an EPO can be made without notice to the parents but they do have a right to apply to court to have the order discharged.

The EPO is usually the first step in the proceedings for a full care order in respect of a child. There is a general acceptance that delay is not ain a child’s interests, and cases are subject to a strict timetable. The court is required to actively manage a case in order to ensure that a final decision on the case is made within 40 weeks. . what is a care order?A court can only make a care order if it is sure that: When a care order is made, it places responsibility on the local authority to look after the child, and to provide them with accommodation and care.

The authority is responsible for the child’s welfare while the care order is in place A care order can only be made for children under 17 years of age (or 16 if the child is married). A care order stops if the child is adopted, and can only last until their 18th birthday. what is an adoption order application?These can be made by the High Court, County Court or Magistrates Court, the application must be at the court in the district where the child lives.

In the case of the County Court or Magistrates Court, where an application is made for a placement order the application can be made in district or area of any parent / guardian of the child. Only the High Court can hear an adoption application if the child is not actually in Great Britain the time the application is made.

The Magistrates Court cannot hear any applications relating to adopting children from abroad. No order can be made without the child attending the hearing, (unless there are special circumstances). An adoption order gives parental responsibility to the adopters and the child is treated as if born to the adopters in marriage. Each parent / guardian must be “joined” as a party (“respondents”) as well as the adoption agencies or local authorities or the voluntary organisation who has care of the child the child mustattend the hearing unless there are special reasons.

The court must only give consideration to the welfare of the child. Adoption documents are confidential. If the adoption is refused the child must be returned to the adoption agency within 7 days of the order. The agency will try and find another suitable placement.

Instead of making an adoption order the court can make a short-term order which gives parental responsibility to the applicants for a period of not more than two years. In this way it gives more time to decide whether the applicants are suitable to adopt. The court can attach conditions to orders, such as allowing the natural parent to have contact with the child, or conditions about the child’s religious upbringing. what is a placement order?

This is an order authorising a local authority to place a child for adoption where there is no parental consent, or where consent should be dispensed with. Placement by consent is the free unconditional agreement of the parent or guardian of a child to that child’s adoption. The consent can be withdrawn at any time up and until an adoption order is made.

The consent must be given on a special form and witnessed by an officer from CAFCASS, (The Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Services). In the case of a mother who has just given birth her consent will not be valid if given in the first six weeks of the birth. If a child under six weeks is placed with an adoption agency they will have to look after the child until it is six weeks old and then ask for parental consent or apply for a placement order.

The consent of a parent or guardian may not be necessary if: In the above circumstances an application should be made for a placement order, but only local authorities can apply for a placement order. They must do so if a child is the subject of a care order and there is no parental consent or where they consider the child is at risk of significant harm. A court cannot make a placement order unless an effort has been made to notify the parents or guardians who have parental responsibility for the child that an application for a placement order is being made.