Subject: Establishing ‘primary care responsibility’

• Background
• Issues regarding the status of grandparents as carers
• Implementation

Background

In Tasmania, as in the rest of Australia, a number of grandparents are taking on the responsibility of raising their grandchildren.

Grandchildren may come into the care of their grandparents in one of three ways:

• through parenting orders issued by the Family Court;
• through care and protection orders made in the Children’s Division of the Magistrates Court; or
• through informal arrangements made with the child’s parents or with the State child protection authorities.

In 2002 a Tasmanian Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Community Development considered issues facing Custodial Grandparents.

Grandparents who presented to this and other inquiries explain that, when they are raising grandchildren, they would like to be recognised by schools as the point of contact for communication about children’s welfare and learning. They report that, particularly where the care arrangements are informal and the courts are not involved, it is difficult to establish their status as ‘primary carers’ to enable this to happen.

The Joint Committee recommended that the Department of Education provide guidelines to schools about how to determine the primary care status of grandparents.

Another recommendation of the Committee was that relevant agencies should publish information for grandparents about Tasmanian Government services and benefits.

The recently released publication Grandparents raising grandchildren: A guide to government services provides information on educational, legal, health and financial matters. The set of four booklets is being distributed to schools, child care facilities, Family and Child Health Centres and Legal Aid and Centrelink offices. Grandparents will be able to get a copy of the booklets from these locations and the Guide will also serve to inform service providers of the range of support available for grandparents.

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Issues regarding the status of grandparents as carers

Grandparents who are raising their grandchildren, understandably wish to be contacted in an emergency, to receive reports on children’s progress and to be consulted if decisions are being made about the children’s health or welfare.

Schools would like a simple means of determining primary care status, so that they can respect the rights of all involved – the children, the grandparents and the parents.

It is relatively simple to implement a policy of accepting a grandparent’s primary carer status at the time of enrolment. However, this status may change over time without schools necessarily becoming aware.

Where the grandparent has taken on the care of children informally, the parent may have overriding legal rights and may dispute the grandparent’s authority.

The onus would need to be on the grandparent to make the school aware of their involvement in a child’s life and to inform the Principal if the parent resumes responsibility for the child.

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Implementation

As noted in the Education booklet:

1. If a grandparent wishes to be recognised as the child’s primary carer, they will need to provide written evidence of ‘parental responsibility’.
   • The type of evidence required will vary according to the circumstances through which they have acquired responsibility for the child:
     • If they have been awarded legal responsibility for the child they should produce that documentation.
     • If they have not been through a legal process but the child’s parent or parents agree to them being the primary carer and point of contact for educational matters, they should provide a letter from the parent or parents confirming this arrangement.
     • If they are unable to get a letter of authority from the child’s parent or parents, they will need to fill out a Statutory Declaration confirming that they are the primary carer.
     • The Statutory Declaration to be completed by grandparents in circumstances such as those above is attached to these guidelines.
2. The Principal will accept these forms of evidence at the time of enrolment. However, if, at a later stage, the parent or parents dispute the grandparent’s authority, further confirmation and evidence of primary care status will be required.
3. At enrolment, the Principal should request the names of both of the child’s parents where possible, so that their relationship to the child can be verified if they contact the school.
4. Once a grandparent is accepted as a primary carer, this should be recorded on SACS to prevent the grandparent from having to repeat the process if the child changes schools.
5. Grandparents have the responsibility to ensure that the new school has up-to-date information on legal and medical matters and a current residential address.
6. The information recorded in SACS will carry forward to the new school. However, the Principal may contact the child’s previous school to confirm details of their relationship to the child and their responsibility for them.

If a grandparent is identified as a primary carer, or where this relationship has been formalised through the court or child welfare systems, they will automatically receive all information from a school that a parent would. Therefore, notices in relation to discipline, non attendance and permission forms, as well as school reports and invitations to ‘parent-teacher’ interviews, should be provided to that person.

The Education booklet notes that grandparents may not necessarily be familiar or confident with the current education system and principals and staff are asked to be sensitive to their needs and to those of the children who have come into their care. Some of these children may have experienced recent family trauma and require special support and consideration.