Q I have two children, a 14-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son. I have never been married to their mother. Do I have any legal rights in relation to my children?

A Parental Responsibility is the name given to the rights, duties and obligations a parent has in relation to his or her child. It includes rights to make decisions about children’s lives, for example with regard to schooling, religion, medical treatment, deciding about his or her name, looking after property etc. It is therefore important to consider whether or not you share Parental Responsibility with your children’s mother, who acquired Parental Responsibility at their birth. As you are not and have not been married to your children’s mother, you have not acquired Parental Responsibility automatically, at your children’s birth. Presuming that the births of both of your children have been registered in England and Wales, you can get Parental Responsibility for your children in three different ways. I note that your son was born after December 1, 2003, when the law changed in relation to Parental Responsibility. If you registered the birth of your son together with his mother and your name was recorded on your son’s birth certificate, then you have Parental Responsibility in relation to him. The above option is not open to you in relation to your daughter, due to her date of birth. In relation to your daughter (and son, if you are not recorded as father on his birth certificate) you have two further options available to you. You could enter into Parental Responsibility Agreement with your children’s mother. This involves completing an Agreement on a standard form and lodging it at the Principal Registry of the Family Division in London. Alternatively, you could make an application to the Court applying for an Order for Parental Responsibility. It is worth taking legal advice about these options, and also exploring Family Mediation to explore the possibility of a Parental Responsibility Agreement with the Mother.

Q My niece has been taken into foster care after a recent court hearing. I would like her to stay with me and her cousins. What should I do?

A Take urgent legal advice, preferably from a solicitor on the Law Society’s Children Panel. On April 1, 2013, new rules and practices came into being for Care Proceedings, and the emphasis is now on concluding these types of cases much more quickly. It is no longer possible for relatives to come forward at the end of cases and expect to be assessed as alternative carers, where parents have been ruled out by the court.

You need to consider whether you want your niece to live with you for the short or long term. The sooner you ask to be assessed, the better. Remember you are not doing so in competition with their parents, and you might want to stress this to your own siblings.

There are a variety of different orders you could consider, including a Residence Order, Special Guardianship Order, and continuing to care for your niece under a Care Order (where you will be approved as a Kinship or Foster Carer). Each of these have pros and cons attached to them and you will need to obtain legal advice about each of them and how they best relate to your own and to your niece’s circumstances.