The District Court has ruled that home adaptations for a child with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy should include a family room and a separate room for the child, and ordered the Child and Family Agency (CFA) to meet two-thirds of the cost of alternative accommodation while the works are carried out.
In a decision dated 14 June 2022, Judge Dermot Simms determined outstanding issues in two applications under section 47 of the Child Care Act 1991, brought by the child’s foster carers. The child, identified as AB in the judgment, was six years and nine months old and had lived with the carers since shortly after birth. The court said AB had a rare, life-limiting diagnosis and increasing mobility and care needs.
A consent order made on 3 December 2021 directed the CFA to arrange and fund necessary adaptations. The parties disagreed over whether the listed works settled the scope of the project. The CFA argued the carers had agreed the necessary adaptations and that it was willing to fund those works. The carers said the list was not final and further work remained to be agreed.
The court found the carers had not resiled from the agreement. It considered the December terms a starting point for further exploration, rather than a specific binding commitment to a final design. The court said that issue was therefore moot.
The court accepted that Scheme E, without a family room, fell within the December agreement, but found the family room was necessary. The proposed layout would remove two living rooms and move the kitchen into the existing family-room extension, leaving that as the only shared space for cooking, meals, television and other daily family activities. The court said the family room was needed for the household to function while providing care for AB.
The court also ordered provision of a separate room for AB, in addition to a bedroom and family room. The CFA’s occupational therapist described the extra room as not essential. The carers’ occupational therapist said it could support therapies, socialising, hobbies, study and access to the garden as AB’s needs changed. The judge concluded that a separate room was required to meet the child’s welfare needs and support his full potential.
For the construction period, the CFA had proposed that rental costs be shared equally. The court instead directed that the agency pay two-thirds and the foster carers one-third, citing unusually high rents at the time. The decision does not specify a rental amount or set out a final cost for the adaptations.