Grandparents can now seek:

• a location order requiring information about where a child is;
• a recovery order requiring return of a child;
• a child maintenance order;
• a contact order giving them access to their grandchildren;
• a specific issues order giving them the day to day and/or long term responsibility for the care, welfare and development of the child; and
• if it can be established that the living arrangements made by the parents are not in the child's best interests, a residence order.

The reasons a grandparent might resort to seeking a court order are varied. Sometimes grandparents' contact with their grandchildren is severely affected by their son's or daughter's divorce. Sometimes they have assumed full-time care of their grandchildren because of the ill health or death of their son or daughter or because their son or daughter has proved to be an unsuitable parent. Where mediation and counselling fail to provide a solution, grandparents may seek orders from the court.

Before a court order can be made a report from a mediator or counsellor will be necessary in the absence of special circumstances.

Whether a grandparent is seeking a residence order in competition with one or both biological parents, or whether the parents themselves are in dispute about with whom the child should live, the process adopted by the court in deciding the issue will be much the same. A court will always regard the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration.

Each competing proposal will be examined in the light of what is in the child's best interests. Making an order that is more likely to avoid further court proceedings is preferred.

A court is required to take into account a number of factors such as the wishes of the child, the nature of the relationship between the people involved and the likely affect on the child of any change in the child's residence.

A grandparent would be more likely to be awarded residence of a child where:

• the child is considered by the court to be of sufficient maturity to make up his/her own mind and says that he/she wants to live with the grandparent;
• the child has regular contact with the grandparent and has traditionally gone to the grandparent for support and advice;
• the grandparent is sufficiently young and has the physical and mental capacity to provide for the child's needs, particularly in relation to education and extra curricular activities; and
• the child's parent/s has or have shown a lack of sensitivity to the child's needs or there is some serious flaw in his/her parenting abilities.

The courts regard a grandparent's right to have regular contact with grandchildren as very important.