When Dulcie Thomas's child turned 13, the phone calls started. Soon they hardly ever stopped. "I would go to work and get four calls from his school," she recalls, "then go home and get another one from the police."
Her son, Dwayne, was playing truant by day and getting into bother at night. It was stressful but for 33-year-old Dulcie, a single parent living in a tough part of London, it was also the norm. "I didn't realise how seriously he was affecting other people," she admits.
She didn't see the parenting order coming, and at first she didn't even know what it was. But when Dulcie realised the court was insisting she attend weekly meetings with a parenting support care worker from Newham Youth Offending Team, she was furious. She felt she was being punished for her son's offences and that a lot of do-gooders would be telling her how to bring him up.
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