Fathers of children looked after in the care system

Children’s services should gather and take into account the views of the child’s parents or previous carer and other important people in the child’s life when making any decisions concerning the child’s care. This should be done unless a court has said it should not. This is a legal duty. It comes from sections 22 (4) and (5) of the Children Act 1989. The duty applies to any child that is looked after in the care system.

That means it applies to:

• Children in care under court orders
• Children who are looked after in the care system under voluntary arrangements
• Children cared for by foster for adoption foster carers.

Children’s services must also:

•  Invite the father to any review of the care plan (a looked after review)
• Send him records of meetings and
• Provide him with a copy of the child’s care plan.

But children’s services do not have to do these things if they believe to do so would place another person at risk. Or if they think it will make the child feel too uncomfortable to take part.

More information about these duties can be found on our Children in care under court orders and Children in care under voluntary arrangement pages.  These pages include a table showing all the main duties to children looked after in these different ways.

Children’s services have a general legal duty to promote contact between a child looked after in the care system and:

• Their parents
• Anyone else who has parental responsibility and
• Wider family and friends.

This duty can be found in schedule 2, paragraph 15(1) of the Children Act 1989).

This duty means children’s services should take positive steps to help make sure a child has:

• A relationship with their parents and keeps in contact with them
• Keeps in contact with wider family and friends.

‘Parents’ includes fathers with parental responsibility and those without it.

The duty applies to all children looked after in the care system. That means it applies to:

• Children in care under court orders
• Children looked after in the care system under a voluntary arrangement
• Children who are looked after by foster for adoption foster carers.

Children’s services should gather and take into account a father’s wishes and feelings about contact.  These should be taken into account when making plans for the child.

The exact arrangements for contact will depend on the precise situation and the child’s needs.

It is always important to remember that when a voluntary arrangement is in place:

• Children’s services do not have parental responsibility
• This is not a court order.

Contact arrangements form part of a child’s care plan. Under a voluntary arrangement, the care plan must be agreed with the parent (or other person) with parental responsibility who is agreeing to the child being looked after. This is because children’s services do not have parental responsibility for the child.

Children’s services should work in partnership with the children and the family to agree the best contact arrangements.  Government statutory guidance called The children Act 1989 guidance and regulations: Volume 2: care planning, placement and case review reminds children’s services of this.

It says where a child is in a voluntary arrangement, contact is:

“a matter for negotiation and agreement between the responsible authority, the child, parents and others seeking contact” (paragraph 2.99).

Fathers can visit our Children in the care system under voluntary arrangements (section 20) page for more about voluntary arrangements.

If a child is looked after in the care system under a care order (so, ‘in care’) there is an extra legal duty on children’s services about contact.

This is the duty to ‘allow the child reasonable contact” between the child and their parents and certain other people. This is set out in section 34 of the Children Act 1989. It only applies to children who are looked after under a court order. For example, an interim or final care order. It does not apply to children looked after under voluntary arrangements.

The contact plans should be plans which would seems reasonable to someone not involved in the case.  And should response to the needs of the child and their family.

Statutory guidance highlights how important it is for children to keep in touch with their parents and others in their family: “Contact can be very important in helping children

and young people develop their sense of identity and understand
their lives and their sense of self” (see paragraph 2.78 of The Children Act 1989 guidance and regulations: Volume 2: care planning, placement and case review.)

Fathers looking for more detailed information about the duties children’s services have to children looked after in the care system can visit our Children in care under court orders page.

The law says the care plan for a child in care under a court order should be agreed with the parents. This must happen ‘as far as is practicable’. That means as far as possible.

The law about this is in regulation 4 of the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010).

If a child is looked after under a voluntary arrangement, then the care plan must be agreed with the parent (or other person) with parental responsibility who is agreeing to the child becoming looked after under a voluntary arrangement. This is because children’s services do not have parental responsibility for a child looked after under a voluntary arrangement.

But the plan should be agreed with others (other parents, others with parental responsibility) as far as is practicable (possible). And their agreement is not needed for the voluntary arrangement to be put in place or continue. See regulation 4 of the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review (England) Regulations 2010)