Presented by Sinéad Murray of Treoir, this member only workshop will cover how parents who were never married to each other in Ireland are still treated different from families based on marriage.
It will be interactive workshop where attendees can ask questions and present case studies in advance and get answers to how best to supports the families they are working with. If you have any particular questions or case studies for the workshop, please email anonymised details to cpdofficer@iasw.ie
The workshop will examine the rights unmarried mothers have, how unmarried fathers can get guardianship rights, how parents can plan ahead for their children’s care if they become unwell or pass away and how they can resolve guardianship disputes.
The workshop will bring clarity to professionals about which parents need to be involved in decisions for their children.
From there we will have a discussion on how access and custody works for the unmarried family and how this can be arranged.
We will then look at who has an obligation to pay maintenance and under what circumstances and for how long.
Finally the workshop will look at kinship care families – how common they are, how social workers can support them, what financial and legal supports are available to them and what their rights are for the children in their care.
Learning Outcomes
Under the difference in the rights and responsibilities between married/ divorced / separated parents and parents that were never married to each other.
Treoir is the National Information Service for Families not based on marriage. This includes one-parent families, parents sharing parenting, cohabiting couples, young parents, extended family members who have a relationship with a child, kinship care, and LGBTQ+ parents.
Treoir has a National Information Service where parents and professionals working with them can call, email or message us looking for legal information about family law and social welfare.
Sinéad Murray is the Senior Information and Training Officer at Treoir and has worked there for five years. She is the Team Lead for Treoir’s National Information Line where parents and professionals can get quick, accurate, accessible, easily-understandable information on the rights and responsibilities of non-marital families.
In her role she also supports policy development, advocacy and public awareness of Treoir and how these families are not treated fairly and equally in Irish society today. Her previous work included working in Rethink Ireland and community organising in New York.
Social workers can order all of Treoir’s publications (free of charge) to be sent to their offices by going to the following link https://treoir.ie/media/publications/leaflet-order-form/
