Advice on Contact

[skelton1966]

My Daughters son lives with his auntie with a SGO in place, the court order that was put in place was that she has two hours visitation every two months which has been going on for the last three years, The auntie has now said because the child is now going to school this year she is changing the visits to three visits in June and July before he starts school which mean there will be a five to six month period my daughter will not see her son , can she do that ?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Skelton 1966

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board. Thank you for your post. My name is Suzie. I am Family Rights Group’s online adviser.

I am sorry to hear of the situation regarding your grandson. You are concerned that his auntie, who is his Special Guardian, is changing the contact arrangements in place for him to see his mother. The proposal will mean that there will be a gap when they do not see each other. The Special Guardian has said this is because the child will be starting school soon. Presumably, she means that he will be settling in and may need time to adjust. It would be good if your daughter and the Special Guardian could discuss this issue further to see if they can agree. I am sure they both want what is best for your grandson.

You want to know if the Special Guardian can do this. This depends. The Special Guardian has almost exclusive parental responsibility so is allowed to make most decisions for the child. But if there is a court order in place that should be followed or varied by the court if necessary.

You refer to a court order in place setting out the contact arrangements. It is important for your daughter to check if there is a Child Arrangements Order(CAO) in place for contact.

Or another possibility is that no specific order was made setting out what the contact arrangements should be. However, there may have been a recommendation that contact should follow the pattern you describe above, at least to begin with, but it may have been left to the Special Guardian’s discretion to decide how this should be managed. Of course, all decisions should be based on the child’s needs and best interests.

Your daughter has a number of options if she is unhappy about this proposal and cannot resolve it with the Special Guardian. I will set them out below but am also attaching a link to our specialist advice sheet: Special Guardianship Orders: information for parents, which provides more detail. Pages 6 and 7 provide information about contact.

Your daughter could ask the Special Guardianship Team who were involved originally to help mediate a solution with the Special Guardian. If your grandson was a looked after child before the Special Guardianship Order (SGO) was made your daughter’s support needs should have been assessed. This can include helping parents and special guardians agree contact arrangements.

If there is a CAO in place for contact, your daughter can seek private law advice about the situation as there is a proposal to vary the arrangement. We do not provide detailed private law advice but your daughter may be able to get specific advice from Child Law Advice, Rights of Women or a solicitor.

If contact was left to the Special Guardian’s discretion, so no CAO was made, then your daughter could seek family mediation to try to work things out. If she needed to, she could consider applying for a CAO. The private law advice services listed above could also advise on this.

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any queries about children’s services, as a grandparent, please post on our dedicated kinship carers discussion board instead of this parents’ board. You may then receive advice and support from other relatives as well as from me. You can also contact the advice service by calling our freephone helpline on 0808 8010366, Mon to Fri, 9.30 am to 3.00 pm, by using our advice enquiry form or our webchat facility.

Best wishes

Suzie

[skelton1966]

Thank you for your advise