The Children Act 1989 places considerable importance on local authorities working in partnership with families and the avoidance wherever possible of court proceedings. However, the Act also makes provision, in the form of care and supervision orders, for compulsory measures to be taken to safeguard and promote children’s welfare. This chapter focuses on care and supervision orders. It covers the initiation of proceedings; the threshold criteria, which refers to conditions set out by s 31(2) that must be satisfied before a care or supervision order may be made; the ‘welfare stage’, where the court must, pursuant to s 1(1), regard the welfare of the child as the paramount consideration; tackling delay in care proceedings; court orders; appeals; and discharge of care orders and discharge and variation of supervision orders. The chapter ends by discussing the position of children in local authority care, focusing on the critical issue of contact with children in care.
Chapter
18. Care and Supervision
N V Lowe, G Douglas, E Hitchings, and R Taylor
Chapter
12. Child Protection: Care, Supervision, and Adoption
This chapter looks at what happens when compulsory intervention to protect children, in the form of care or supervision applications, is needed. It considers the legal tests, the processes, and the practicalities involved in proceedings. It analyses the legal test for making the child subject to a care or supervision order—that the child in question is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm attributable to their care or to them being beyond parental control—before turning to what happens when this test is met. As far as the court is concerned, the best interests of the child are paramount. The court has to consider all realistic options for the child’s future, including a return to the birth family, foster care, special guardianship, supervision, and adoption. It looks in depth at the law surrounding adoption and the human rights implications of changing a child’s family.
Chapter
10. Children needing services, care, and protection
This chapter examines the relationship between children, parents, and the state, looking at how the law responds to children needing services, care, and protection. Topics discussed include: Part III of the Children Act 1989; the threshold for compulsory intervention in family life based on the concept of ‘significant harm’; protecting children in an emergency; care and supervision orders; the local authority’s care plan and respective roles of the local authority and court; and discharge of care orders.
Chapter
11. The Law Relating to Children: Public Law and Adoption
The Concentrate Questions and Answers series offers the best preparation for tackling exam and assignment questions. Each book includes key debates, typical questions, diagram answer plans, suggested answers, author commentary, and tips to gain extra marks. This chapter deals with the public law relating to children, contained in Parts III, IV, and V of the Children Act 1989, and the law relating to adoption, under the Adoption and Children Act 2002. The questions contained in this chapter are a mixture of essay and problem questions that focus on: emergency protection for children, i.e. police protection, emergency protection orders, and local authority enquires; care, supervision, and education supervision orders; the difference between adoption and special guardianship orders and finally, the requirements and procedures for adoption.
