Parenting Plans – Consent to Child’s Mental Health Treatment

Child in blue shirt with stripes using tablet. Florida Parenting Plans Consent to Child's Mental Health treatment.

How do parenting plans provide for consent to mental health treatment for a child? 

What does “mental health treatment” even mean and include? 

Further, what if parents don’t agree on mental health treatment their child should continue, undertake, or stop?

In this context, how does shared parental responsibility and decision making work? Specifically, may one parent consent to mental health treatment for the child when the other doesn’t agree? Must they even confer before one parent authorizes mental health treatment for their child?

Shared Parenting and Decision Making – Mental Health Treatment

First, we discuss basics of shared and sole parental responsibility and decision making. Then, we examine Florida’s amended law mandating each parent’s retaining consent to mental health treatment when they share parental responsibility.

What does “mental health treatment” mean? How can parents use various definitions in their collaborative process? Finally, we survey Florida’s laws on informed consent by one parent or guardian.

In this series, we discuss:


⇒ Next:  Parental Responsibility and Decision Making

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