Parental rights and responsibilities
Contents
What is parental responsibility?
What is parental responsibility?
All mothers and most fathers have legal rights and responsibilities as a parent - known as ‘parental responsibility’.
If you have parental responsibility, your most important roles are to:
provide a home for the child
protect and maintain the child
You’re also responsible for:
disciplining the child
choosing and providing for the child’s education
agreeing to the child’s medical treatment
naming the child and agreeing to any change of name
looking after the child’s property
Parents have to ensure that their child is supported financially, whether they have parental responsibility or not.
Parental responsibility for separated parents
If you have parental responsibility for a child but you don’t live with them, it doesn’t mean you have a right to spend time with your children. However, the other parent must include you when making important decisions about their lives.
You don’t always need to get the consent of the other parent for routine decisions, even if they also have parental responsibility.
If it’s a major decision (for example, one of you wants to move abroad with your children) both parents with responsibility must agree in writing.
You can apply for a Specific Issue Order or Prohibited Steps Order if you can’t agree. A judge will then make a decision which is in your children’s best interests.
You must make sure your children are financially supported, whether you have parental responsibility or not.
You can get help to arrange contact with your children.
Contact with your grandchild
When the parents divorce or seperate.
You do not have an automatic legal right to see your grandchild if a parent stops you seeing them. There may however be steps you can take to get access.
There’s a different process in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
You can try to get help in seeing your grandchild through:
an informal, family-based arrangement with both parents
mediation
If this does not work you can ask the court for permission to apply for a court order. You apply for permission on the same form as the court order application.
Mediation
An independent family mediator can help you and family members work out an agreement.
They will organise a ‘mediation information and assessment meeting’ (MIAM). This is designed to help families reach agreements following divorce or separation, including those involving children.
Apply for a court order
You must attend a meeting about mediation before you can apply to a court, unless you’re exempt (for example, because domestic violence is involved).
If you’ve been to a meeting and still want to apply for a court order, you need to:
fill in the C100 application form
send it to your nearest family court
The mediator who facilitated your mediation meeting must sign the court order to confirm you attended the meeting.
You will have to pay a £215 court fee. You may be able to get help paying the fee.
What happens next
The court will decide whether or not you can spend time with the child and if so, what sort of contact would be in the child’s interest. For example, an order might state that you can only have contact by telephone or letters (indirect contact).
The order can decide:
where a child lives
who a child spends time with and when
what types of communication, such as face-to-face contact or phone calls, should take place between the child and someone named in the order
The court will always make a decision based on what is in the child’s best interests.
Further information
You can get more support and advice from: