Birth Parents and the Collateral Consequences of Court-ordered Child Removal: Towards a Comprehensive Framework

Broadhurst, Karen; Mason, Claire

doi:10.1093/lawfam/ebw013

Cited by 100 publications

(127 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…When we contemplate foster care as a form of youth care that is added to the natural or original network of a child, the biological parents are considered to play a very important role in the matter. However, we know that the parents of foster children often “disappear” for a variety of reasons (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017). According to the vision of foster care, it should be evident that foster children are able to maintain permanent contact with their parents, since this is possible in many types of foster care situations.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shift from the parental perspective to the child's perspective has been going on in the Western world for several decades and has progressed so far in some countries, such as the Netherlands, that merging both perspectives becomes impossible as the child is viewed as the only focus of professional aid. In this vein, the focus on foster care is mainly on the child and his or her care continuity; consequently, it is argued that the interests and rights of the parents lose their meaning (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017; Featherstone, Morris, & White, 2014). Such a “child first” approach appears to put parental functions in parentheses or, as Lister (2006) puts it, “children but not women first,” as children have moved to the heart of child protection policy.…”

Section: Foster Care In the Best Interests Of The Childmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Several times I have asked the judge to get my children back”: 10 years of foster care complaints at the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner

Wilde

Vanobbergen

2020

Child & Family Social Work

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European societies struggle with the question of how to deal best with, and organize care for, those children who, for various reasons, need to be placed out of their home. In an attempt to protect these children, states organize different forms of care. Under the influence of testimonies of abuse and neglect, the image of residential care has become tainted and the placement of looked-after children in foster families has become increasingly favoured. This evolution towards a manifest choice for foster care is defended as being more in "the interests of the child." However, the "best interests of the child" notion is applicable in decisions concerning substitute care in many different ways. During the last decade, the shift towards a child's perspective away from a family-preservation perspective is noticeable. We argue in this paper that this focus on children's needs is at the expense of the rights and identity of the parents. Based on an analysis of 342 complaints concerning foster care reported to the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner, we analysed which "alarming situations" are reported and highlight a number of pressing concerns from the perspective of parents. K E Y W O R D S care, children's rights, family life, foster care, out-of-home care, parents 1 | INTRODUCTION To this day, European societies struggle with the question of how to deal best with, and organize care for, those children who, for various reasons, need to be placed out of their home (Colton &

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Foster Care In the Best Interests Of The Childmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Several times I have asked the judge to get my children back”: 10 years of foster care complaints at the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner

Wilde

Vanobbergen

2020

Child & Family Social Work

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“…In these dire circumstances, it is perhaps understandable that the women (re)turn to drugs and alcohol, remain in violent relationships, or indeed, become pregnant again as a way to ameliorate their grief. This is encapsulated in the words of one of the women in the Mothers Living Apart from their Children project: (Darby et al, 2014, p.29) Thus, the loss of a child has far reaching material as well as psychological effects; what Broadhurst & Mason (2017) have described as the 'collateral consequences' of court-ordered child removal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Haunted futures: The stigma of being a mother living apart from her child(ren) as a result of state-ordered court removal

Morriss

2018

The Sociological Review

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The notion of 'haunted futures' (Ferreday & Kuntsman, 2011) can provoke new understandings of the experiences of birth mothers living apart from their children as a result of state-ordered court removal. As 'abject figures' (Tyler, 2013), the mothers are silenced through the stigma and shame of being judged to be a deeply flawed mother, the justifiable fear of future children being removed, and court-ordered reporting restrictions. In this paper, I depict how these mothers exist in a state of haunted motherhood: they are paralysed in anticipation of an imagined future of reunification with their children. The mothers are painfully aware that any future pregnancy will also be subject to child protection procedures; thus even their future motherhood continues to be stigmatised by the past. However, while the ghosts of removed children signify a traumatic loss, they also simultaneously represent hope and future possibilities of transformation through re-narrativization (Gordon, 2011). The creation of spaces for the mothers to speak about their experiences can foster a 'maternal commons'. This ending of enforced silencing can be a political act, countering the stigma caused by pathologising individual mothers and making visible how structural inequalities and governmental policies impact on the lives of the most vulnerable families in the UK.

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“…Furthermore, the important work of Karen Broadhurst and her colleagues in England has shone a light on the high prevalence of repeat appearances of women in the family court. They cite this as evidence of the importance of building an evidence base and professional expertise such that this population of parents can benefit from effective mental health intervention, which addresses the complex psycho-social consequences of child removal and can potentially prevent such repeat child removals (Broadhurst & Mason, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘My children are my world’: Raising the voices of birth mothers with substantial experience of counselling following the loss of their children to adoption or foster care

Morgan

Nolte

Rishworth³

et al. 2019

Adoption & Fostering

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There is very little published literature on 'what works' in terms of support for birth mothers following the loss of their children to compulsory adoption or foster care. The aim of this paper is to raise the voices of a group of birth mothers, an historically stigmatised, powerless and neglected group, with substantial experience of such counselling. A user of services and expert by experience was recruited to join the research team and was consulted at all stages of the research process. Five birth mothers were interviewed regarding their experiences of counselling with a counselling service for birth relatives post-child removal. These interviews were systematically analysed using an IPA methodology through the lens of the research question: What are the experiences of birth mothers who engage in person-centred counselling following the loss of a child or children to compulsory adoption or foster care? Three master themes were constructed from the data, namely From feeling alone, judged and let down…to feeling part of a special relationship, "The Healing Process" and "My Children are my world". The clinical invitations extended by these findings are discussed.

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Birth Parents and the Collateral Consequences of Court-ordered Child Removal: Towards a Comprehensive Framework

Cited by 100 publications

References 47 publications

“Several times I have asked the judge to get my children back”: 10 years of foster care complaints at the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner

“Several times I have asked the judge to get my children back”: 10 years of foster care complaints at the Flemish Office of the Children's Rights Commissioner

Haunted futures: The stigma of being a mother living apart from her child(ren) as a result of state-ordered court removal

‘My children are my world’: Raising the voices of birth mothers with substantial experience of counselling following the loss of their children to adoption or foster care

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