Reducing Recurrent Care Proceedings: Building a Local Evidence Base in England

Abstract

Recent studies of public law care proceedings within the family justice system in England and Wales suggest that up to a quarter of all mothers who appear in such proceedings will reappear within a subsequent—or recurrent—set of such proceedings within seven years. In the last decade, new interdisciplinary research spanning social work, clinical psychology and sociology has defined and investigated the previously hidden challenge and social costs of ‘recurrent care proceedings’ (RCP). This article adds to this new field by analysing the core values, practice and impact of three different local services in the northwest of England working with birth parents to reduce the risk of recurrent proceedings. The article combines data gathered from the three distinct services using a common evaluation framework co-produced by the authors working with service leads, practitioners and users. It explores how all three services are seeking to reduce the risk of recurrent care proceedings in their local areas without requiring women to use long acting reversible contraception (LARC) or other forms of contraception as a condition of accessing the service. It concludes that insights gained from these and cognate services can inform an emergent community of practice in the recurrent care field.

Recognition and Justice? Conceptualizing Support for Women Whose Children Are in Care or Adopted

“…It is also important to recognize that we did not compare outcomes between Pause and other services that work with women who have experienced child removal, and cannot draw any conclusions about the model's relative efficacy in comparison to other services. As discussed elsewhere in this special issue, this is a rapidly developing field of provision, and other services share many of the same core values, for example in relation to the emphasis on trust in the relationship between woman and practitioner, and report promising evidence of positive change in women's lives (see [14], this issue). To understand whether the facets of recognition discussed here are crucial ingredients for interventions that aim to reduce risk of child removals, or to extrapolate from this study to other national contexts, would require further research.…”

“…As the prevalence of recurrent care proceedings has been recognized, a growing number of targeted initiatives have been developed to intervene with this population of women, aiming to reduce the likelihood that they will have further children who are removed into care or adoption. The value of these services has been documented through independent evaluations (e.g., [13][14][15][16]). The provision that was the focus of our research-Pause-was one of the first recurrence-focused services to be established in England.…”

Giving HOPE and minimising trauma: An intervention to support women who are separated from their babies at birth due to safeguarding concerns

“…This type of ambiguous loss, which brings little closure, is more difficult to recover from than the permanent loss of death (Boss, 1999). With few opportunities to resolve their grief, it is not surprising that, as other studies have found (Broadhurst & Mason, 2020;Cox et al, 2020;Neil et al, 2010;Wall-Wieler et al, 2018), mothers in this situation experience acute mental distress which may result in self harm and in some cases attempted suicide: I went home and I took an overdose, because I did not want to be alive without my children. (Mother 103)…”

Compulsory separation of women prisoners from their babies following childbirth: Uncertainty, loss and disenfranchised grief

“…The social isolation experienced by women during child removal was a common theme found by Cox et al (2020), and building a future following child removal was described as complex and challenging. Cox et al (2020) suggested that repeat removals may be abridged by including postseparation therapeutic interventions rather than the suggestion of simply avoiding future pregnancies.…”