depression and epliepsy

just wondering could anyone tell me if a mother having extreme depression and bad epilepsy would be grounds for a father to apply for full residence of there child that''s already living with there mother? What would the courts views be?

The father already has contact.

I think you would need to give more detail and define ''extreme depression'' and ''bad epilepsy'' for people to be able to give you an opinion. Plenty of people are depressed following the breakdown of a relationship but don''t have their children ordered to reside with the opposite parent as a result. Equally, I am sure there are plenty of people with epilepsy who are parenting appropriately.

Is the child appropriately cared for? getting to school on time? clean clothes? eating 3 meals a day? has the school expressed any concerns? has anyone else expressed any concerns? What age is the child? How much contact have you been having - has it been overnight?

I think it would also depend on the age of the child, how controlled the epilepsy is and whether the child witnesses fits and has to deal with them. Also whether the child''s education is affected by time taken off due to mums illness.

It is an uphill struggle changing the established arrangement unless there is evidence from professionals (teachers, doctors, social workers etc) that children aren''t surviving satisfactorily. Child abuse/ neglect is defined in law. The Children Act 1989 states that it is abuse when someone''s actions have caused a child to suffer ‘significant harm’ to their health or development eg not looking after a child – not giving them enough to eat, ignoring them, not playing or talking with them or not making sure that they are safe. That is threshold for the authorities to become involved.

If on assessment it is found children are at risk the risks are weighed against the strengths, including the attachment the child has with the parent and measures that might be put in place, to determine whether parenting is "good enough."

For example, a much loved parent might be a binge drinking alcoholic who is incapable of caring for the children just at weekends, doing the shopping and getting them to school on a Monday morning. By putting measures in place for the shopping to be done in advance of the weekend, the other parent having the children at weekends and someone taking the children to school on a Monday am it may be deemed the alcoholics parenting is good enough and it isn''t in the children''s interests to disrupt their sense of security by changing the existing arrangement.