ABSTRACT
The Children Act 1989 introduced the concept of significant harm as the threshold justifying compulsory intervention in family life in the best interests of the child. A court may only make an Order if it is satisfied that the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm and that this harm is attributable to a lack of adequate parental care or control. There are no absolute criteria on which to rely when judging what constitutes significant harm and government documents (e.g. Department of Health et al., 1999) offer only indirect guidance, indicating that it may be a function of the extent, duration, frequency, severity or characteristics of the abuse or neglect, or the degree of threat or sadism involved. Often, ‘significant harm is a compilation of significant events, both acute and long-standing, which interrupt, change or damage the child’s physical and psychological development … [and]…it is the corrosiveness of long-term emotional, physical or sexual abuse that causes impairment to the extent of causing significant harm’ (ibid., P. 8).
