special guardianship

Not convinced it will be. Sounds like the worst of all worlds to me.

This is not the case.  Special Guardians obtain overriding parental responsibility and, as I understand it, this is why Special Guardianship Orders were created. 

With Residence Orders - if a person granted a Residence Order didn't previously have PR they would obtain it when the Residence Order was granted, but anybody else with PR (e.g. birth parents) would also retain PR.  With a Residence Order, all parties (birth parents and person with Residence Order (e.g. relative or former foster carer)) have equal Parental Responsibility and the only extra responsibility / additional power which the person with the Residence Order obtains is that legally the Residence Order means the child should be living with them in their care.

With Special Guardianship Orders - the Special Guardian(s) obtain overriding Parental Responsibility.  Anybody else with PR (e.g. birth parent) retains PR, but the Special Guardian has overriding PR.  There are a very, very few decisions which usually require the consent of everybody who has any PR if being taken on behalf of a child (if I remember correctly, these are - changing the child's name, consenting to medical treatment which could affect the child's future fertility and ?something else - there are literally only about three of them) - these things can't be done unilaterally by the Special Guardian, but in everything else the Special Guardian has overriding PR and can make all parenting decisions for the child.  We tell people going for Special Guardianship that it is only slightly below adoption in terms of how strongly it places the Special Guardian(s) in the parenting role for the child. 


(Residence Orders were often used to resolve disputes about which birth parent children should live with after a divorce or separation, as well as being used for children living away from their birth parents.  As of about April this year (2014), Residence Orders and Contact Orders have been replaced by Child Arrangement Orders, however I believe the legalities and details are largely the same as when the were called Residence Orders and Contact Orders.)


(jmk - I couldn't think how to respond to your message.  I had a member login on the old (orange) Adoption UK boards for years (under the username Maybe) and probably made less than 5 posts (certainly less than 10 posts).  The posts I made were when I felt I had something genuinely useful or important to say which wasn't being said by anybody else on a thread.  As I said in my message requesting a login name for this board, I try to respect the fact these message boards (the Adoption UK one and this one) are primarily by and for adopters.  Additionally, the 'Maybe' of my username refers to the fact that, if circumstances were to allow, I would like to become a foster carer or adopter myself.  I'm not sure what your policy is regarding people asking to become members of this board if they state that they'd be interested in adopting in a number of years' time but are not currently adopters or being assessed as adopters?  I can't even think how to end this paragraph.)