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Children Act 1989 section 8 — Child arrangements orders and other orders with respect to children

TL;DR. Section 8 is the orders-toolkit statute for the England-and-Wales family court system. It defines three types of "section 8 orders": (i) child arrangements orders ("CAOs" — regulating with whom a child is to live, spend time, or otherwise have contact, and when), which replaced the prior residence-and-contact-order regime via Children and Families Act 2014; (ii) prohibited steps orders (preventing a parent from taking a specified action without court consent); and (iii) specific issue orders (giving directions on a specific question about parental responsibility). All three are subject to the section 1 welfare paramountcy + welfare checklist framework when contested. Section 8(3)-(4) defines "family proceedings" for the purposes of triggering the court's residual section 8 jurisdiction across a long list of related family-law statutes (the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Part 3, Adoption and Children Act 2002, etc.).

Source: legislation.gov.uk — Crown copyright, published under Open Government Licence v3.0. · Fetched: 2026-06-13 · Editorial commentary licence: CC BY 4.0

Full statutory text (verbatim)

8 Child arrangements orders and other orders with respect to children.

(1) In this Act—

"child arrangements order" means an order regulating arrangements relating to any of the following—

(a) with whom a child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact, and

(b) when a child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact with any person;

"a prohibited steps order" means an order that no step which could be taken by a parent in meeting his parental responsibility for a child, and which is of a kind specified in the order, shall be taken by any person without the consent of the court;

"a specific issue order" means an order giving directions for the purpose of determining a specific question which has arisen, or which may arise, in connection with any aspect of parental responsibility for a child.

(2) In this Act "a section 8 order" means any of the orders mentioned in subsection (1) and any order varying or discharging such an order.

(3) For the purposes of this Act "family proceedings" means any proceedings—

(a) under the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court in relation to children; and

(b) under the enactments mentioned in subsection (4),

but does not include proceedings on an application for leave under section 100(3).

(4) The enactments are—

(a) Parts I, II and IV of this Act;

(b) the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973;

(ba) Schedule 5 to the Civil Partnership Act 2004;

© the Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976;

(d) the Adoption and Children Act 2002;

(e) the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates' Courts Act 1978;

(ea) Schedule 6 to the Civil Partnership Act 2004;

(f) sections 1 and 9 of the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983;

(g) Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984;

(h) the Family Law Act 1996;

(i) sections 11 and 12 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998;

(j) Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 (other than paragraph 3 of that Schedule);

(k) Part 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, where the proceedings are in the family court or the Family Division of the High Court.

Why section 8 matters for parental-alienation analysis

Section 8 is the statutory toolkit through which PA-context applications enter the English and Welsh family court system. Almost every contested PA-relevant family-law application is brought as one (or more) of:

  • Child arrangements order ("live-with" / "spend-time-with") — the canonical application. PA-pattern contact-obstruction cases are typically brought either by the obstructed parent seeking enforcement of an existing live-with-or-spend-time-with order, or by either parent seeking to vary the order in light of changed circumstances (which may include sustained alienating conduct).

  • Prohibited steps order — used to prevent specific alienating-pattern acts. Common examples include orders preventing one parent from removing the child from school, from a hospital, or from the jurisdiction; orders preventing one parent from changing the child's name, school, religion, or medical care provider; orders preventing exposure of the child to specified third parties.

  • Specific issue order — used to resolve specific contested questions of parental responsibility. Common examples include determinations on the choice of school, religious upbringing, medical treatment, and surname.

All three are decided under section 1 of the Act — the welfare paramountcy + welfare checklist + presumption of parental involvement framework. The Re-arc cases (Re A [2019] EWCA Civ 1735 → Re S [2020] EWCA Civ 568 → Re H-N [2021] EWCA Civ 448 → Re C [2023] EWHC 345 (Fam) → Re Y [2026] EWFC 38) all proceed under one of the section-8 order categories.

The section 8(3)-(4) definition of "family proceedings" is the procedural hook that triggers the court's residual welfare jurisdiction. Once any of the listed enactments are engaged (e.g., divorce proceedings under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, or domestic-abuse proceedings under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Part 3), the court may make any section-8 order of its own motion (i.e., without a specific application) where the welfare of a child is engaged.

Practice notes (PA-context)

  • Live-with vs spend-time-with framing (post-2014): the Children and Families Act 2014 deliberately replaced "residence" and "contact" with neutral "live with" / "spend time with" wording to avoid the historical perception that residence orders conferred a status of "main parent." The reframing did not change the substantive analysis — courts still allocate primary and substantial parenting time, and a CAO can specify any combination of arrangements (shared, primary-with-significant-contact, etc.).

  • Enforcement of a CAO is governed by sections 11A-11P of the Act (added by the Children and Adoption Act 2006). Available enforcement orders include unpaid work requirements, financial compensation orders, and warning notices. In sustained PA-pattern contact-obstruction cases the court may consider transfer of residence as a last-resort welfare-bounded remedy.

  • Prohibited steps orders are particularly important in early-stage PA-context litigation. A well-drafted PSO can prevent an alienating-pattern parent from unilaterally enrolling a child in a new school, from disclosing litigation documents to the child, or from making medical decisions that disrupt contact arrangements.

Cross-references within the AntiAlienate Knowledge Base

Primary source

  • legislation.gov.uk canonical URL: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/8
  • Statute citation: Children Act 1989 (1989 c.41), section 8 (as amended by Children and Families Act 2014 s.12, in force 22 April 2014, replacing "a residence order" and "a contact order" with "a child arrangements order")
  • Subsequent amendments: subsection (4) updated to add the Civil Partnership Act 2004 entries (2005), the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 entry (2015), and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 Part 3 entry (2021).
  • Status: Crown copyright; published under the Open Government Licence v3.0 — verbatim reproduction permitted.

Sources & authoritative references

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