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Parental responsibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Roger Kennedy*
Affiliation:
The Cassel Hospital, 1 Ham Common, Richmond, Surrey TW10 7JF
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One of the main concepts in the new Children Act (1989) is that of parental responsibility, which will significantly alter the practice of family law and that of mental health professionals dealing with the troubled family. Instead of an assumption that parents have absolute authority over their children, there is the notion of a partnership between parents and children, with the power of the parent decreasing as the child grows in maturity and understanding. There is an emphasis on partnership between parents and those who will have to share in having parental responsibility when it has broken down. Thus the new Act is essentially child centred. It affirms the principle, current in Wardship proceedings, that the child's welfare shall be the court's paramount consideration.

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Articles
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1991

References

An Introduction to the Children Act 1989 (1989). London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Kennedy, R. et al (1987) The Family as In-Patient. London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
Kennedy, R. et al (1988) The treatment of child abuse in an in-patient setting. Bulletin of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 12, 361366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, R. et al (1989) Psychotherapy, child abuse and the law. Psychiatric Bulletin, 13, 471476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, P. (1978) Affective response of the analyst to the patient's communications. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 59, 329334.Google Scholar
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