Disability Care And Family Law

This book explores the series of issues that emerge at the intersection of disability, care and family law. Disability studies is an area of increasing academic interest. In addition to a subject in its own right, there has been growing concern to ensure that mainstream subjects diversify and include marginalised voices, including those of disabled people. Family law in modern times is often based on an "able-bodied autonomous norm" but can fit less well with the complexities of living with disability. In response, this book addresses a range of important and highly topical issues: whether care proceedings are used too often in cases where parents have disabilities; how the law should respond to children who care for disabled parents – and the care of older family members with disabilities. It also considers the challenges posed by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, particularly around the different institutional and state responsibilities captured in the Convention, and around decision-making for both disabled adults and children. This interdisciplinary collection – with contributors from law, criminology, sociology and social policy as well as from policy and activist backgrounds – will appeal to academic family lawyers and disability scholars as well as students interested in issues around family law, disability and care.

A handbook for all those involved in care proceedings where one or both of the parents is learning disabled. The book sets out the relevant policy and guidance in this area; considers and analyses the legal and practical arguments and issues likely to arise in learning disability cases; and concludes by focusing on the reported cases where learning disability has been an important feature. This new edition has been comprehensively updated to provide an invaluable guide to this complex area for family lawyers and social workers.

Provides a comprehensive, critical, and case-focused introduction to family law. Hayes & Williams' Family Law helps students to gain a firm understanding of family law principles, the developing law, and key reform debates.

Families with special needs children have much higher divorce rates and cases involve specialized handling. This book examines what lawyers can do to make the family court system work better for these children and their families. Filled with practice tips, the book includes forms modified to address issues raised by a special needs child. Includes sample forms and documents, checklists, resource materials, and contact information for organizations and state agencies. Includes forms CD-ROM.

While in the past family life was characterised as a "haven from the harsh realities of life", it is now recognised as a site of vulnerabilities and a place where care work can go unacknowledged and be a source of social and economic hardship. This book addresses the strong relationships that exist between vulnerability and care and dependency in particular contexts, where family law and social policy have a contribution to make. A fundamental premise of this collection is that vulnerability needs to be analysed in a way that gets at the heart of the differential power relationships that exist in society, particularly in respect of access to family justice, including effective social policy and law targeted at the specific needs of families in mutually dependent caring relationships. It is therefore crucial to critically examine the various approaches taken by policy makers and law reformers in order to understand the range of ways that some families, and some family members, may be rendered more vulnerable than others. The first book of its kind to provide an intersectional approach to this subject, Vulnerabilities, Care and Family Law will be of interest to students and practitioners of social policy and family law.

This book explores the emerging engagement of EU law with care and carers. The book argues that the regulation of care by the EU is crucial because it enables the development of a broad range of policies. It contributes to the sustainability of society and ultimately it enables individuals to flourish. Yet, to date, the EU approach to regulating the caring relationship remains piecemeal and lacks the underpinning of a cohesive strategy. Against this backdrop, this book argues that the EU can and must take leadership in this area by setting principles and standards in accordance with the values of the treaty, in particular gender equality, human dignity, solidarity and well-being. The book further makes a case for a stronger protection for carers, who should not only be protected against discrimination, but should also be supported, valued and put in a position to make choices and lead full lives. In order to achieve this, a proactive approach to rebalancing the relationship between paid and unpaid work is necessary. Ultimately, the book puts forward a series of legal and policy recommendations for a holistic approach to care in the EU.

This collection brings together leading international socio-legal and medico-legal scholars to explore the dilemma of how to support legal capacity in theory and practice. Traditionally, decisions for persons found to lack capacity are made by others, generally without reference to the person, and this applies especially to those with cognitive and psycho-social disabilities. This book examines the difficulties in establishing effective and deliverable supported decision-making, concluding that approaches to capacity need to be informed by a grounded understanding of how it operates in 'real life' contexts. The book focuses on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which recognises the equal right to legal capacity of people with disabilities and requires States Parties to provide support for the exercise of this right. However, 10 years after the CRPD came into force, the shift to legal frameworks for supported decision-making remains at best only partial. With 16 chapters written by contributors from the UK, Canada, Finland, India, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey, the collection takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach. Many of the contributors have been directly involved in law reform processes in their home jurisdictions, and thus can combine both academic expertise and practical, grounded awareness of the challenges of legal change.