ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the background for subsequent chapters on private law orders, public law child protection orders and adoption. It presents a case study of Peter who decided that he would like to develop his relationship with Olivia and as part of that he would like to gain parental responsibility for her. The chapter presents a list of issues related to parental responsibility that the student should be able to understand and apply before then going on to set out a practice question and suggested answers where these issues and the law relating to parental responsibility and the Principles of the Children Act 1989 are applied. There are two parts to the question and they should be dealt with separately. The first is how Peter could gain parental responsibility and the second is whether an older child, Olivia, would be Gillick competent to refuse to take her medication.
