Research objectives
Researchers at Cascade – the Children’s Social Research and Development Centre at Cardiff University – set out to explore how different factors affect the chances of children being taken into care, including whether there is a difference when problems affect mothers or fathers. Published by Children and Youth Services Review, March 2024.
Method
The study used various official data collected by social services and health services in Wales to identify 2,535 households where children were taken into care and examine the circumstances in those homes before children entered the care system. They also identified a comparison group of 271,991 households where children did not enter care. They looked at problems among adults in all households such as drug and alcohol misuse, learning difficulties and different types of mental health conditions and were able to compare data for single-parent households.
Key findings
As expected, the findings show parental problems are more common in households where children entered care. The most common risk factor by far was depression. At least one adult had depression in nearly half of households where children were taken into care.
The variable that increased the chances of care the most was where an adult had multiple – three or more – risk factors but drug misuse or assault on an adult had a significant impact on their own.
The most striking finding was that most risk factors had a much bigger impact on the likelihood of a child entering care if they affected the child’s mother rather than others in the household.
Of the 274,526 households included in the study, 58,292 were headed by a single adult – 53,518 by a single woman – mostly the child’s biological mother – and 4,774 by a single man. Many of these men were likely to be fathers although the data did not show whether this was the case or not.
When the researchers focused on single-parent households they found most issues had a bigger impact on the likelihood of a child entering care if they occurred in a single woman rather than a single man. For example, if a single woman has a drug misuse problem this increases the chances her child will be taken into care much more than if a single man has a drug problem.
They found similar patterns for other parental problems with the exception of anxiety. Single men with anxiety were more likely to have their children taken into care than single women with anxiety.
Implications for practice
The researchers say their findings highlight serious inequalities around the circumstances in which children are likely to enter care. However, their study does not explain why these inequalities exist. It could be related to social work practice and different attitudes to working with mothers and fathers or the extent to which children’s services are made aware of different issues with mums and dads. It may be linked to attitudes in wider society to single mothers and single fathers, which affect social services referrals. The study team say more research is needed to help ensure parents are treated equally regardless of sex.
Authors: Nell Warner, Jonathan Scourfield, Rebecca Cannings-John, Olivier Rouquette, Alex Lee, Rachael Vaughn, Karen Broadhurst, Ann John
Further reading
