Children's hearings training resource manual: volume 1

2 Applications for residence and contact orders - s 11 of the 1995 Act.

A residence order regulates the arrangements made about where the child lives. This could include arrangements that the child should reside at different times with each of his or her parents and not just with one parent all of the time. It may also include residence with other people such as grandparents or with other extended family.

Contact orders set down the arrangements which should ensure the child has contact with people with whom he or she is not living. This could be a parent or members of the family. An order limiting or amending a parent's right to maintain personal relations and contact with a child will only be made by the court if it is in the child's best interests. Residence and contact orders last until the child is sixteen.