# The Children (Leaving Care) (England) Regulations 2001, Regulation 4: Relevant children


(1) For the purposes of section 23A(3), children falling within paragraph (2) are an additional category of relevant children.
(2) Subject to paragraph (3) a child falls within this paragraph if—
(a) he is aged 16 or 17;
(b) he is not subject to a care order; and
(c) at the time when he attained the age of 16 he was detained or in hospital and immediately before he was detained or admitted to hospital he had been looked after by a local authority for a period or periods amounting in all to at least 13 weeks, which began after he reached the age of 14.
(3) In calculating the period of 13 weeks referred to in paragraph (2)(c), no account is to be taken of any period in which the child was looked after by a local authority in any of a pre-planned series of short-term placements, none of which individually exceeded four weeks, where at the end of each such placement the child returned to the care of his parent, or a person who is not a parent but who has parental responsibility for him.
(4) For the purposes of this regulation—
(a) “detained” means detained in a remand centre, a young offenders institution or a secure training centre, or any other institution pursuant to an order of a court; and
(b) “hospital” means—
(i) any health service hospital within the meaning of the National Health Service Act 1977; or
(ii) any mental nursing home being a home in respect of which the particulars of registration are for the time being entered in the separate part of the register kept for the purposes of section 23(5)(b) of the Registered Homes Act 1984.
(5) Subject to paragraph (7), any child who has lived with a person falling within section 23(4) of the Act (“a family placement”) for a continuous period of six months or more is not to be a relevant child despite falling within section 23A(2) of the Act.
(6) Paragraph (5) applies whether the period of six months commences before or after a child ceases to be looked after by a local authority.
(7) Where a family placement within the meaning of paragraph (5) breaks down and the child ceases to live with the person concerned, the child is to be treated as a relevant child.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/2874/regulation/4 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/children-leaving-care-england-regulations-2001/regulation-4
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.