Services

We offer Legal Advice and Assistance in the following areas of Law: –

SOCIAL SERVICES INVOLVEMENT WITH YOUR CHILD/CHILDREN

Social services may become involved with your family if they believe that your child/children are at risk of physical or emotional harm. This may be because of long standing difficulties within your family or as a result of an emergency. Often you will be asked to attend child protection conferences if Social Services are concerned about the welfare or safety of your child/children. You may be asked to agree that your child/children lives with foster carers or Social Services may apply to court for a court order.

We can provide legal and practical advice and represent you in dealing with the following types of application.

Emergency Protection Orders/Police Protection Orders

An order which allows Social Services or the police to remove your child from your care for a short period if they think that your child needs urgent protection.

Care Orders

An Order which allows Social Services to share Parental Responsibility with you and may involve the removal of your child to the care of foster carers or family members.

Supervision Orders

An Order which allows the Social Services to supervise your care of your child.

Placement Orders

An Order which allows Social Services to find adoptive parents for your child and to start to arrange for your child to be adopted.

Adoption Order:

An Order which grants a child new legal parents and apart from agreed contact, you effectively are no longer involved in the care of your child.

These can be extremely complex proceedings and progress in different ways and involve many parties and complex assessments. We can provide

• legal representation to deal with these applications.
• Support to parents by attending Child Protection Conferences arranged by Social Services.
• Support to parents and other relatives in relation to contact with children in care.
• The Local Authority is under a duty to undertake assessments of suitable and willing family members prior to placing a child into foster care. We will advise you on whether it is appropriate for them to be joined as a party to the proceedings.

All persons who have acquired parental responsibility for a child involved in care proceedings is entitled to legal aid.