What is covered by Children Law?
Children Law is a significant area of the legal system covering:
- Child custody, arrangements and access
- Surrogacy and adoption
- Care and maintenance
- Child welfare, protection and safeguarding
- Orders pertaining to important aspects of a child’s life such as care, education and religion
- Children’s rights, including the right to education, a safe home, appropriate employment and support if they need to leave home
These laws aim to ensure a child is safe, well and cared for, and that their rights are protected.
How is a child legally defined?
In England, a child is defined as anyone who has not yet reached their 18th birthday, even if they are over 16 and living independently, in further education, in the armed forces, being treated in hospital or in the justice system.
Important Children Law Acts
The subject of Children Law is vast, so this blog outlines some of the main Acts and what the laws mean to children.
Children Act 1989
This Act defines how children should be kept safe and protected from harm. It forms the basis of children’s services’ duties and responsibilities, specifically identifying children in need, supporting their family to bring them up safely (if their welfare is not compromised by remaining in the family home) and taking the correct action if they consider a child to be suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm.
It defines parental responsibility and the court orders that children’s services and families can apply for.
Key principles include:
- The welfare of the child
- That a child should be cared for by their family where possible
- The need for children’s services and the court to take the wishes and feelings of the child into account
- Intervention where necessary and supporting, not undermining, the parent who should be helped to remain closely involved in their child’s life unless the child is at risk of harm
- Preventing delays to court proceedings in cases involving a child
- Finding a suitable placement with kinship carers, such as a relative or friend, if a child cannot remain living with their parent(s)
Children Act 2004
This Act expands on the Children Act 1989. It outlines how local authorities should work with other agencies, such as the police and youth offending teams, to promote safety and wellbeing through an integrated approach to the planning, commissioning and delivery of children’s services.
It requires local and national authorities to provide strong leadership by appointing accountable people, including a Children’s Commissioner and directors and lead members of children’s services. It also required local authorities to set up safeguarding boards.
It provides the legal basis for how issues relating to children should be dealt with by agencies and underpins the UK government’s ‘Every Child Matters: Change for Children’ initiative.
The Act’s key values:
- Ensuring children are healthy, happy and leading an enjoyable life
- Ensuring children are safe
- Supporting children to succeed
- Helping to achieve economic stability for a child’s future
- Making a positive contribution to a child’s life
Children and Social Work Act 2017
This Act amends both of the above and defines improvements to the support of looked after children and care leavers, promotes the welfare and safeguarding of children, and establishes provisions for social workers via a new regulatory regime.
Key provisions include:
- Local authorities are known as ‘corporate parents’ to looked after children and care leavers, and this Act outlines seven corporate parenting principles
- The requirement for local authorities to publish a ‘local offer’ for care leavers setting out the services available to them to help them prepare for adulthood and independence, including a personal advisor if they’re under 25
- Requiring any court making decisions about long-term placements for children to consider the impact (or likelihood of) any harm to the child, and how their current and future needs will be met
- Adding prospective adopters (with whom a child has been placed) to the list the court will consider when deciding about adopters
- Removing the local safeguarding children board and employing the local authority, a clinical commissioning group and the police as key safeguarding partners to decide locally how best to work together to improve safeguarding
Children Law and us
We understand that the breakdown of a family is a difficult time for everyone involved. Our children-first approach puts the needs of younger family members at the centre of cases. By encouraging families seeking support with legal matters to put the interests of any children first, we endeavour to find the best outcome for them.
We can support you with:
- Child arrangements
- Childcare cases
- Prohibited steps orders
- Specific issue orders
- Change of name
- Parental responsibility
- Special guardianship
- Adoption
- Child maintenance
- Childcare proceedings for public law children matters
Get in touch with us via email to hello@agrlaw.co.uk or 0116 340 0094. We are able to provide Legal Aid or litigation loans to those eligible.
If you suspect or know that a child is in immediate danger, please ring 999 and speak to the police. If you believe a child may be at risk of being in danger, but is not in immediate danger, you can ring 101 or report it to the NSPCC