1989 Children's Act

The children act was first introduced in 1908; this was passed by the liberal government at the time. Even thought the act was needed to protect children of the time it was surrounded by controversy. The main aims of the 1908 act were to regulate fostering, baby farming, and wet nursing. One of the greater aims of the 1908 act was to give local authorities power to keep children of poorer backgrounds away from workhouses and to ultimately protect them from abuse. (www.parliament.co.uk, 1998)
In 1948 an act of parliament was established to form a compressive childcare service (Hendrick, 2010) this act was to enable local authorities to work closely with families, and started a new approach towards parent-child relations. Another imitative about this act was to "view children as individual human being with both shared and individualised needs rather than an indistinct mass” (Hendrick, 2010)
The act centres on the idea that children are best cared for within their families even though this act does mention that certain times parents or families do not co operate with local authorities. The 1989 children act is spilt into six parts. Part one of the children’s act looks at the welfare of the, and it is stated that the welfare of the child is paramount. This takes into account the Childs wishes, physical, emotional and educations needs. (Legislation.gov.uk, 1989) Part one also looks at parental responsibility for children, within this act it discusses all rights duties powers responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to the child.(Legislation.co.uk,