The Children’s Social Care National Framework defines a parent as including:
- any birth parent, with or without parental responsibility for the child;
- any step-parent, with or without parental responsibility for the child, who is in a subsisting relationship with the birth parent;
- any adoptive parent;
- any parent by virtue of section 42 or section 43 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, whether or not they have parental responsibility for the child.
