Care and supervision orders - overviewDuties

The Children Act 1989 (ChA 1989) provides for local authority social services departments to be responsible for making sure that children are safe and appropriately cared for by their parents or the person looking after them. Local authorities also have a general duty of care to promote the well being of children in their area and are responsible for investigating any child in their area where they have cause to suspect the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.

Typically a local authority may start these investigations for any of the following reasons:

Actions

When a local authority becomes involved with a family in which the children are at risk, the local authority will work with the family and involve relevant agencies and professionals.

Before a court application is made a child protection case conference should be held, to which parents/ carers, relevant professionals, organisations and agencies are invited, to see if the child could properly be protected without a care order being made.

The ChA 1989 created a single statutory route for taking children into care through a care or supervision order, requiring the statutory threshold to be satisfied. Once the threshold is satisfied the court considers the welfare principle.

When investigating a child a local authority may apply for a child assessment order to enable an assessment to be made. Courts may make a child assessment order during other family proceedings. Similarly if urgent proceedings are required by the circumstances an application for an emergency protection order can be made.

Once care proceedings have been started the court has options of making

The effect of a care order is that parental responsibility is shared between the local authority and parents. The care plan, accompanying any application, should be a detailed operational plan.