- Home
- / Procedures
- / Legal
- / Residence Orders
- / Community Parenting Order
Community Parenting Order
A Community Parenting Order is an order which gives parental responsibility to the Health and Social Services Department. It is intended for use when it is likely that there is a need for a long term placement for the child away from the family.
The purpose of the order (in short) is:
- to protect children from harm and promote their proper and adequate health, welfare and development,
- to enable the Department to make plans for children until they are 18, or when they have completed their studies, or, in the case of an interim community parenting order, the order expires. A community parenting order cannot be made unless the court has first approved the content of the child's plan, and, either,
- none of the child's parents, or any other member of the child's family, are willing and able to provide adequate care, protection and guidance for the child, or
- everyone with parental responsibility has agreed to the making of the order or all of them are not known, cannot be found or are incapable of giving consent. Reasonable contact with people who are important to the child should be maintained unless to do so would place the child at risk.The granting of the order does not remove parental responsibility from those who have it but the Department can determine the extent to which those people exercise their parental responsibility except for the following:
- naming, or changing the name of the child,
- removing the child from Guernsey or Alderney (except for a holiday)
- placing the child out of Guernsey or Alderney,
- placing the child for adoption,
- choosing the child's religion,
- giving consent to marriage of the child
- choosing a guardian for the child.