2.Rights and Child Protection

Parents and carers have rights, including the right to a private and family life, and children and young people have rights including the right to be protected from harm, abuse and neglect. 

Parents have responsibilities as well as rights. Responsibilities that mean they must ensure their children are safe and well, that they will follow laws in place to keep their children safe and that if they need help they will ask for this. 

When there are significant concerns about a child’s wellbeing a local authority must become involved to prevent this from occurring or to ensure the safety of the child. This involvement can mean parents feel their rights as parents are being interfered with.

The local authority must make sure that they are working within the law and where it is safe to do so, parents and carers must be fully involved in discussions about any decisions that are made which affect their family. 

Parents and carers look after children and are who children live with. This can include wider family, kinship carers, foster carers and staff in residential settings. 

Although they care for a child on a day-to-day basis, many carers do not have full legal parental rights.

Parents under the age of 18 have the same parental rights as any adult with a child. 

Parents and carers with parental rights have parental responsibilities to the children in their care. This includes the need to:

• take care of their child 
• provide guidance to their child, giving them help, advice, clear boundaries and support, providing and making decisions in their interests
• make sure their child is getting an education
• be their child’s legal representative, speaking for their child in any legal matters which involve them, unless their child is old enough and of sufficient age and maturity to speak to a solicitor for themselves
• and, where a parent, does not live with their child, to maintain contact with their child, where possible 

Looking after children means attending to their physical and material needs and their health, development and emotional needs. Looking after children can be very challenging at times and all families can need extra support. 

At times some parents or carers harm or are at risk of harming their children because of extra pressures or difficulties that can make parenting even more challenging. Living with stress, poverty, poor mental health or substance misuse can all have an impact on our lives. Parents and carers may need help.

Children of parents who are not British citizens but live in Scotland have the same right to be protected from harm and to be supported. Parents with ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ who need support to keep their child safe can find out more information on the Justright Scotland website.

Child Protection is about a balance of safety and rights.  

All children under 18 have the right to be safe and protected. That’s everyone from unborn babies right up until the night before someone’s 18th birthday. Parents who are under 18 have rights as children and rights as parents. They must be supported based on what they need. 

Children’s rights to be kept safe and healthy is in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a set of rights that the UK has agreed to for all children. 

The UNCRC includes 42 rights to make sure children and young people are listened to and heard, their views are respected, and they can be healthy, learn, play, grow and be safe. 

Children have the right to not be harmed, abused or neglected in any way and child protection works to uphold these rights. 

Child Protection is about a balance of safety and rights.