Suchergebnisse

This article is focused on the immediate and enduring consequences of child removal, from the perspective of birth mothers. The article builds on the authors' previous theoretical work on the collateral consequences of child removal and women's vulnerability to repeat family court appearances. Interview data drawn from in-depth qualitative interviews with 72 birth mothers conducted in seven local authority areas are revisited to enable a focused analysis of the immediate and longer-term effects of child removal. Analysis was informed by phenomenology's interest in collective accounts of experience and the pursuit of moderate generalisations. All the women participating in the study had experienced the repeat removal of their children through the family courts, or were involved in child protection proceedings concerning an unborn child, having previously lost a child from their care. Birth mothers recounted an immediate psychosocial crisis following child removal, but also the cumulative and enduring nature of problems. From women's accounts, we have been able to deepen our understanding of the enormity of the recovery challenge for women with long-standing histories of disadvantage who hold fragile and restricted social statuses. Role loss and further exclusionary consequences of child removal were particularly pronounced, given women's limited access to protective resources. A clear set of recommendations for services are set out in a final discussion. The scale of the difficulties women face needs to be recognised in services that aim to promote recovery, if women are to be helped to avoid recurrent family court proceedings.

A pilot Family Justice Observatory for England and Wales is being launched in Spring 2019. Its overarching aim is to address concerns about the limited and uncertain place of empirical evidence in the family justice system. The Observatory will focus on providing intelligence about how the system is working, especially through the accelerated use of electronic population level data on family justice cases. Drawing on collaborative relationships between data providers and users, as well as policy and practice colleagues, the Observatory will improve collective understanding of the needs of children and families and how they are met by the family justice system.

This paper concerns policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption. The central argument of this paper is that, to date, the rehabilitative needs of this population of birth mothers have fallen outside the remit of statutory agencies. Moreover, the extant literature offers little by way of definitive findings in respect of the size of this population or rehabilitative options. Indeed, a marked absence of discussion within mainstream policy circles renders this population hidden, only hinted at in profiling studies that note the sequential removal of siblings through public law care proceedings. Conceptualising this population of women as 'maternal outcasts' who bear the stigma of spoiled motherhood, we consider a range of factors that impact on this population's continued exclusion. Falling so far outside normative expectations of motherhood and presenting with multiple problems of daily living, there is no doubt that this population raises particular practical, ethical and legal challenges. However, these challenges should not stand in the way of a concerted prevention agenda. © 2013 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

ABSTRACTApril 2008 saw the introduction of a new Public Law Outline (PLO) that aims to improve judicial case management of Public Law Children Act cases. The PLO is a response to concerns about the rising number of care proceedings, associated costs, and the difficulties of achieving case resolution given this volume. Based on an ethos that care proceedings should be avoided wherever possible, the new approach to case management, which places significant emphasis on pre‐proceedings work and the effective engagement of parents, can be seen to reinforce the 'no order principle' enshrined in the Children Act (CA) 1989. Focusing specifically on relationships between parents and professionals, this paper provides a critical discussion of the potential of the PLO to further promote consensual practices with parents. Discussion traces the introduction of the concept of partnership within the CA 1989, provides a review of the evidence to‐date of effective partnership working, before considering the prospects for the PLO with respect to parental engagement. A number of key contextual obstacles are highlighted that will inevitably undermine the aspirations of the new outline, and a more general observation is drawn about the limits of procedure in effecting change in complex social issues.

April 2008 saw the introduction of a new Public Law Outline (PLO) that aims to improve judicial case management of Public Law Children Act cases. The PLO is a response to concerns about the rising number of care proceedings, associated costs, and the difficulties of achieving case resolution given this volume. Based on an ethos that care proceedings should be avoided wherever possible, the new approach to case management, which places significant emphasis on pre-proceedings work and the effective engagement of parents, can be seen to reinforce the 'no order principle' enshrined in the Children Act (CA) 1989. Focusing specifically on relationships between parents and professionals, this paper provides a critical discussion of the potential of the PLO to further promote consensual practices with parents. Discussion traces the introduction of the concept of partnership within the CA 1989, provides a review of the evidence to-date of effective partnership working, before considering the prospects for the PLO with respect to parental engagement. A number of key contextual obstacles are highlighted that will inevitably undermine the aspirations of the new outline, and a more general observation is drawn about the limits of procedure in effecting change in complex social issues. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

ABSTRACTStatute and practice relating to s.31 part IV of The Children Act 1989 allow children subject to care orders to be placed at home with their parent(s). It is not uncommon for the courts to accept a plan for children to return home at the final hearing of care proceedings at which full care orders are granted. In such instances, children retain looked‐after status but, in terms of their day‐to‐day care, are looked after by parent(s). Whilst there are a small number of studies conducted in the 1990s relating to children 'home on trial', there is a much more limited recent literature. It is important to revisit this population of children, given current concerns about the burgeoning costs of child care proceedings and the looked‐after children system (LAC). This paper reports on a small‐scale exploratory study in one north‐west local authority area. Consisting of a file study and interviews with parents and professionals, the study examines the factors that contributed to initial removal of children to public care, the impact of the LAC system for children 'home on trial', stability of placements at home, as well as issues to do with the discharge of care orders. Particular attention is drawn to lone father headed households, a social group over‐represented in our sample. The study aims to inform further multi‐location studies.

A critical and evidence-based review of current and future child protection policy and practice. Provides evidence-based perspective with an up-to-date overview of policy and practiceCovers several disciplinary boundariesGoes beyond mere description to enable engagement in critical analysis of various policy areas as they relate to children and families

A critical and evidence-based review of current and future child protection policy and practice.: Provides evidence-based perspective with an up-to-date overview of policy and practice; Covers several disciplinary boundaries; Goes beyond mere description to enable engagement in critical analysis of various policy areas as they relate to children and families.

Building on the findings from the national study of mothers in recurrent care proceedings in England, this paper proposes that the concepts of complex trauma and epistemic trust may help explain parents' difficulties in engaging with child protection services. With the aim of advancing theoretical knowledge, qualitative data drawn from interviews with 72 women who have experienced repeat care proceedings are revisited, with a focus on women's developmental histories and accounts of engagement with professionals, to probe the issue of service engagement. The article starts with a succinct review of the literature on parental non-engagement in child protection, highlighting strengths and potential limitations of current knowledge. This is followed by an introduction to the theoretical concepts of complex trauma and epistemic trust, outlining how these concepts provide an alternative framing of the reasons why parents may resist, or are reluctant to engage with, professionals. Drawing on women's first-person accounts, we argue that high levels of maltreatment and adversity in women's own childhoods shape adult relationships, particularly in relation to vulnerability to harm in adult lives but also mistrust of professional help. Extracts from women's first-person accounts, chosen for their typicality against the core themes derived from the data, indicate that acts of resistance or rejection of professional help can be seen as adaptive—given women's childhoods and relationship histories. The authors conclude that parents' social histories need to be afforded far closer attention in child protection practice, if preventative services are to reach those with histories of developmental trauma.

The article argues that New Labour's concern with productive moral citizenship underlies the model of 'corporate parent' which informs the Children (Leaving Care) Act, 2000. We show that there has been in statutory child care work a rather uncritical acceptance of 'good parenting' leading to 'good outcomes', based on the 'Looking after Children' (LAC) system. The Children (Leaving Care) Act, 2000, has transferred significant duties from the social security system to local government social services departments for the payment of personal allowances and housing costs of young people leaving care. It has provided powers for the discretionary interpretation of their circumstances and provision for their welfare, all as part of a social work assessment called a 'Pathway Plan'. The government, through this legislation, presupposes that care leavers will benefit from a simulated experience of the transition to adulthood enjoyed by non-care leavers. The poverty and deprivation leading to social exclusion experienced by a significant minority of non careleavers is in fact the financial baseline of the provisions in this legislation. It is therefore hardly surprising that we find inherent tensions and contradictions within the legislative framework and the context of its implementation for social services and the practice of social workers with care leavers.

The topic of parental engagement in the context of child protection is of significant international interest, given much documented problems of achieving effective 'partnerships' where professional agencies raise serious concerns about children. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study of interaction between professionals and parents in the quasi-judicial setting of pre-proceedings meetings in England. Recent legislative changes in England and Wales have aimed to improve the prospects for effective partnership work with parents through a revised pre-proceedings process. Through detailed examination of parent-professional interaction using methods of applied discourse studies, the study highlights the constraints that institutional requirements create in terms of the differential rights and obligations of parents and professionals. Inevitably, that talk is asymmetrically organized in favour of the local authority, leads to resistance on the part of parents. The study highlights problems of engaging parents who display both active and passive forms of resistance, as they seek to challenge or reject organizational goals. The study concludes with broader observations about the likely limits of legislative efforts that seek to 're-order' the complex relationships between parents and professionals in child protection work. © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

Prompted by findings from the Munro Review of Child Protection, this paper provides a critical analysis of the combination of changes that appear to have undermined social workers ability to develop strong partnerships with children and their families. Here, we engage with a number of now familiar lines of critique that have exposed the negative consequences of aspects of New Labours modernisation agenda (such as excessive standardisation). However, we challenge our readers to think more broadly about the political foundations of the New Labour project and, in particular, to consider how neo-liberal policies have in the past and are likely in the future to lead to the intensification of inequalities, thus undermining effective family work. Efforts to deal with excessive rules and procedures, or the revision of performance targets, as suggested in the Munro Review, will not mitigate the corrosive effects of rising social inequality. If we are to think systemically, as Munro suggests, then we must consider the likely regressive impact of impending public sector and welfare cuts and challenge any moves to sideline family support and restrict social work to a narrow focus on child protection. © The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.