National Reputation, Local Presence

Adoption & Other Children Issues

 

   

  • At Blackfords LLP we offer the full range of legal services in relation to Children’s issues so if you are a parent, step-parent, grandparent, other family member, prospective adopter or a civil partner of a parent we are here to help with all of your requirements.

  • The Adoption and Children Act 2002 has revolutionised the law in this area opening up the opportunity of adoption to a much wider pool of prospective parents in all situations and now recognises that unmarried couples, whether gay or straight, should be able to adopt children together. Previously, only married couples or single people could adopt children thus severely limiting the potential pool of adopters and creating the artificial situation that only one party to an unmarried relationship could become the parent of the child living with them. Now everyone is eligible to apply whatever the choices that they have made in the organisation of their personal life.

  • The new Act has also refocused the criteria for making an Adoption Order without the consent of the natural parent to the welfare of the child. Under the old legislation, it used to be the case that a parent’s consent to adoption would be dispensed with if they were found to be “unreasonably withholding their consent” and yet what could be more reasonable than wanting to prevent the permanent loss of your child? Happily, the new Act has replaced these unhelpful and rather offensive criteria and now places the welfare of the child as the paramount consideration in deciding whether an order should be made.

  • Adoption applications can arise in a variety of circumstances whether as a result of a child being placed with you or because you are a step parent to your partner’s child. If you are a prospective adopter of a child placed with you by an adoption agency, it may well be that the child is the subject of a Placement Order following care proceedings, in which case the question of parental consent will have already been dealt with in the Placement Order proceedings and you will have parental responsibility for the child pending the Adoption Order. Alternatively, it may be necessary to deal with the question of parental consent in the Adoption proceedings in which case, you may want to proceed on a confidential basis. We recognise the need to preserve the security of the child’s placement in these circumstances and offer our service on a national basis with this in mind. Consulting with solicitors in a different part of the country can often assist in diverting attention from the locality of the placement and the service that we offer does not require any personal attendance in our office so distance is not a problem.

  • The Adoption and Children Act has also created other new legal concepts to meet the everyday needs of diverse and modern family arrangements. Special Guardianship Orders are intended to create the permanence that is required when family members take over the full time care of a child on behalf of a parent. Such Orders give Special Guardians the full autonomy to exercise all aspects of parental responsibility for a child to the exclusion of the natural parent but do not amount to a total adoption, which would extinguish the legal relationship between the child and the natural parent.

  • The Act also ends the discrimination against unmarried fathers acquiring parental responsibility for their children by allowing unmarried fathers named on birth certificates to be granted parental responsibility at the point of registration of the birth for children born after 1st December 2003. The Act also makes it easier for step-parents caring for children with their spouse or civil partner to acquire parental responsibility by a simple agreement procedure. 

  • Please contact Pauline Troy, Senior Partner to see how we might assist you:

  • To improve the efficiency of the service we offer, please download our children law initial instructions form and email it to us before your appointment.