Advice on travelling with my child as a Testamentary Guardian

[Angelwings]

Hi, my husband and I became testamentary guardians for our son almost 3 years ago. We’re going on our first holiday abroad later this year but I’m struggling to find out what documentation we’ll need to take as he has a different surname to both us and our other two children. Has anyone done this who can offer any advice. We have his birth certificate and both parents death certificates, along with a copy of the will naming us as the testamentary guardians, and the letter of probate. Any advice welcome

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Angelwings

Thank you for your post and welcome to the kinship carers discussion forum.

My name is Suzie, online adviser at Family Rights Group.

You have, in your post, expressed concern about travelling abroad with your son for whom you were appointed a testamentary guardian in his parents’ Will. As a testamentary guardian appointed by parent(s) with parental responsibility, under s.5 of the Children Act 1989, you will have parental responsibility for him and, as such, should be able to travel with him on holiday since there is no other person who has parental responsibility.

You and your husband may wish to consider applying for a child arrangement order to confirm that he lives with you.

I suggest when travelling on holiday it might be helpful that you have copies of the documents mentioned in your post with you.

To get more advice on this issue you may wish to speak with Child Law Advice on 0300 330 5480 or get some advice from a family solicitor about applying for a child arrangement order. It might also be helpful for you to look at Kinship website here

I hope you find this information helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

[Angelwings]

Thank you so much for getting back to me with such helpful advice.

[Robin D]

I concur with Suzie. We travelled abroad for many years with various children including those under High Court wardship, residence orders, adoptive and foster children. The only difficulty we ever had was getting them back into this country! Never going out, nor getting into other countries including the USA which is frankly slightly concerning as you would think they would want to stop children being wrongly removed. Make sure you have all the documents and do not let them take them, or the children out of your sight! Having a physical court order does tend to smooth things, but does not stop the 1001 questions. One of the teenage foster children we took away told the passport checker that it was none of his business that she was fostered as we were her Mum and Dad! To say she was furious, and still talks about it today (She is now 50) shows what a negative impact it had on her.