Research Report: Capturing the Scale and Pattern of Recurrent Care Proceedings
Charlotte Goddard
Monday, August 4, 2014
Researchers examine data relating to mothers repeatedly involved in care proceedings, with multiple children being taken into care.
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Authors: Karen Broadhurst, University of Manchester, Judith Harwin, Brunel University, Mike Shaw, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, Bachar Alrouh, Brunel University
Published by: Family Law, August 2014
SUMMARY
Social care professionals have reported long-standing concerns about clients who are repeatedly involved in care proceedings, with multiple children taken into care. The researchers wanted to investigate the scale of this issue, an area they say had not previously been examined.
The team obtained anonymised data from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass). They created a database containing the records of 46,094 mothers involved in care proceedings under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 between 2007 and 2013. "Recurrent mothers", who were linked to more than one care application during this period, made up 15.5 per cent of the sample - 7,143 mothers.
The study - Capturing The Scale and Pattern of Recurrent Care Proceedings: Initial Observations From a Feasibility Study - found recurrent care proceedings involving the same parents are a sizeable problem for English family courts, with 29 per cent of all care applications linked to recurrent mothers. In some areas of England, this percentage is significantly higher, with the national range extending to 39 per cent. There were 22,790 infants and children linked to recurrent cases, making up a quarter (25 per cent) of all children in care proceedings.
In cases where mothers were involved in more than one care proceeding, the average interval between the start of the first set of proceedings and the start of the second was 93 weeks. The researchers point out that since most cases involved infants, this finding suggests that in the majority of cases, women were pregnant again during proceedings or shortly after. Mothers who were involved in more than two care applications had even shorter intervals between proceedings.
According to the researchers, this finding shows mothers have very little time to change their behaviour and approach between care proceedings and the highest risk parents have the least time to achieve change. The average duration of the first set of care proceedings was 57 weeks but the average duration of the second set of proceedings was 37 weeks, indicating decreasing opportunity for parents to change.
The researchers found half (50 per cent) of the birth mothers caught in a cycle of repeat care proceedings were under 25 at the time of the first care application, and 19 per cent were very young - 14- to 19-year-olds. Recurrent mothers were younger than those who only had one care application. Recurrent care proceedings resulted in a range of legal orders, although care orders predominated. A supervision order was made for nine per cent of children and 10 per cent were subject to special guardianship orders.
Implications for practice
The researchers recommend agencies should help high-risk birth mothers to extend the window between pregnancies as part of a multi-faceted approach to rehabilitation. In addition, attention needs to be paid to the court process, to ensure the family court maximizes the engagement of teenage or very young, vulnerable women and their families.
Where the local authority is notified that a subsequent pregnancy has occurred, midwifery and children's services should be co-ordinated as soon as possible, and recommendations made in previous sets of care proceedings must be addressed. There are already initiatives that aim to tackle recurrent care proceedings such as Salford City Council's Strengthening Families project and Suffolk County Council's Positive Choices, and the researchers say these are delivering promising results.
FURTHER READING
- Maternal Outcasts: Raising the Profile of Women Who Are Vulnerable to Successive, Compulsory Removals of Their Children - a Plea For Preventative Action, Karen Broadhurst and Claire Mason, Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, 2013. An examination of policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption.
- What Can Professionals do to Support Mothers Whose Previous Children Have Been Removed: An Exploratory Study, Emma Blazey and Emma Persson, Children's Workforce Development Council, 2010. Two senior social workers investigate innovative ways of working with parents to ensure subsequent children successfully remain in their parents' care.
- National Picture of Care Applications in England for 2013-14, Cafcass, May 2014. The latest statistics showing the number of care applications received per 10,000 child population by each local authority in England.
Recurrent mothers involved in more than one care application
15.5%
7,143 mothers
Age of recurrent mothers at first care application
19%
Aged 14-19
31%
Aged 20-24
Age of children in recurrent care applications
58%
Aged under 12 months
Total number of mothers: 46,094
Source: Family Law
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