Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

Hello everybody,
My current situation is :
I currently have an SGO over my nephew. This has been in place since Sep 2017 when he was 10 months old and he has lived with me and my partner ever since. The birth mother has stalled all contact and after a lot of effort on our part we have stopped chasing her. She has not seen him since 23rd June 2018 and correspondence is non-existent. The birth father is my younger brother who does not have any parental rights, nor is part of the SGO in any sense. The relationship is next to non existent and he believes he can drop in and out of my nephews life which we have stopped tolerating for my nephews wellbeing.
My partner is not on the SGO with me so does not have any legal parental rights, which has been a bit of a nightmare when it has came to dealing with medical problems that my nephew has gone through. My nephew calls us his mummy and mama and has no idea who the birth mother is, which is no surprise since she has not been in contact.

My Question :
In essence, myself and my partner want to fully adopt my nephew as we see him as our son, we want to change his last name and have complete parental rights. It is incredibly doubtful that the birth mother will just sign over parental rights even though she has done nothing for my nephew in his whole life. Before he came to us he was in foster care. If anyone knows how we start or where we even begin this process it would be incredibly helpful.

Dear LDA55

Welcome to the family and friends carers’ discussion forum.

Thank you for your post. I see that you have a special guardianship order for your nephew which has been in place since 2017. You now wish to adopt your nephew which would mean that his mother would no longer have parental responsibility. You say your brother, his fahter has no parental responsibility, is this because he was never on his son’s birth certificate?

Did the court make any order for the birth parents to have contact? Or was this to be arranged between you as special guardians and the parents? Has any support been offered to the parents to engage with contact from children's services?

You say that you and your partner wish to change your nephew’s surname. Although you have a special guardianship order, you cannot change his surname without seeking and order from the court to do so. Regarding adoption, before making an application for an adoption order you would need to give notice to the local authority where you live that you wish to adopt. They would carry out appropriate investigations. It then be for the court to decide once you have applied whether an adoption order would be best for your nephew in the long term. The court would consider the family relationship and how this would be affected by adoption.

Any application you make to the court, whether to change the surname or for an adoption order would involve the parents as parties and, they could, if they wish challenge your application.

You may be able to obtain further information in respect of adoption from Coram Adoption.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie