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Hallo,
I have a 2 year old son who lives with his mum (my ex-wife) and her parents full-time. I currently have no access to him because my child arrangements order needs renewing. Prior to this I had supervised access, which could not continue because I could not afford to continue paying £1 per minute for it.
My question however is not to do with any right of access I may have to my child (there are no court orders in place that prevent this). I'm more interested in the other rights I may have as a parent to learn more about his life and wellbeing, as there is no contact between me and my ex-wife and her family. I am too scared to initiate any contact because I fear they would find some way of making any contact I made sound negative in court.
For example:
Would I be within my rights to contact his nursery and get a report on how he is doing? (He goes to nursery 4 days a week, paid for by his mum).
Would I be within my rights to find out who his GP is (this would mean contacting my ex-wife's solicitor for the details) and accessing his medical records?
Would I be entitled to consultation on which primary school he ends up being enrolled at? (I was told nothing about his nursery until after he had started there).
What other info can I reasonably ask for about my son's life? Bearing in mind my ex-wife and I haven't spoken in the past 2 years, this will always mean going through her solicitor. I cannot afford a solicitor of my own, so am a 'litigant in person'.
Many thanks in advance.
Parental responsibility, in theory at least, gives you all of the rights you are asking about. The problem you have is that father's have frequently come up against a reluctance to give out this information without first consulting the mother. I would suggest that you write to your ex's solicitor asking for the information to see where that gets you. If, however, you don't get the answers you want, the question is what you would hope to achieve if you then went to court to get orders to ensure you are given this information - realistically, if there is disagreement between you and your ex about a particular decision to be made, then the parent with care is going to be the one who has the final say, without a court intervening.
I’m a little confused, in one sentence you mention that a Child Arrangements Order needs renewing and then you talk about court and being a litigant in person.
Have you initiated court proceedings? Have you attended mediation? Mediation can be conducted with both parties in separate rooms, if you are uncomfortable communicating directly with each other.
You can write to the child’s nursery, and the local area health authority and ask for information regarding your son.
As far as decisions about choice of school, if you’re not communicating this would be difficult, unless you can get it written into a court order that email contact must happen to decide jointly on education etc.
In the meantime I can link you to template letters that you can use to contact the authorities with your information requests.
Best of luck
Was your Child Arrangement Order for interim supervised contact? Did you not attend subsequent hearings, or was the CAO a final order?
I would say that getting contact reinstated is the priority and yes, use the links Mojo has posted above with regard to exercising your PR.
Have a look on the National Association of Contact Centre's website, you might be lucky and find a financially supported centre locally.
Thank you. I did not attend the most recent hearing as I was recovering from depression - I applied for an emergency adjournment, but my application was never passed on to the district judge in advance, despite me following the family court's rules on this to the letter. Nor was a personal letter I wrote to the judge explaining my predicament.
Thankfully my paid McKenzie Friend attended the hearing, and gave the judge my adjournment application and letter. Taking these and everything else on the day into consideration, the judge decreed that the interim order for supervised contact must expire until such a time as I feel ready to reapply for a child arrangements order and attend court for a fact finding hearing.
I have also contacted the NACCC to see whether there are financially supported options locally with regard to supervised contact.
If you are ready to proceed with a Child Arrangement Application, you could try writing to the judge who accepted the adjournment and ask the matter is restored to court.
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