# The Children (Leaving Care) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005, Regulation 3: Relevant children

Extent: N.I.

(1) For the purposes of Article 34B(3) of the Order, 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 an 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 an 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 juvenile justice centre or a young offenders centre; and
(b) “hospital” means –
(i) any hospital within the meaning of Article 2(2) of the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972;
(ii) any private hospital as defined in Article 90(2) of the Mental Health (Northern Ireland) Order 1986.
(5) Subject to paragraph (7), any child who has lived with a person falling within Article 27(4) of the Order (in this regulation referred to as “a family placement”) for a continuous period of six months or more is not to be a relevant child despite falling within Article 34B(2) of the Order.
(6) Paragraph (5) applies whether the period of six months commences before or after a child ceases to be looked after by an authority.
(7) Where a family placement 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/nisr/2005/221/regulation/3 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/children-leaving-care-regulations-northern-ireland-2005/regulation-3
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.