Claire Sanders looks at special guardianship orders four years on
It is almost four years (December 2005) since the courts have been able to make special guardianship orders (SGOs) under the Children Act 1989 (CA 1989), s 14A as amended by the Adoption and Children Act 2002; how effective has this provision been in bridging the status between a residence order; long term fostering and adoption?
The White paper, Adoption: A New Approach summarised the main features of the special guardianship regime as being to: give the carer clear responsibility for all aspects of caring for the child, and for making the decisions to do with their upbringing; provide a firm foundation on which to build a lifelong permanent relationship between the carer and the child; be legally secure; preserve the legal link between the child and their birth family; and allow proper access to a full range of support services including, where appropriate, financial.
It also identified a range of circumstances in which adoption may not be the best solution for a child who
