Supporting families at risk of having children taken into care
Taking children into care has important consequences for children and their families. Children who spend time in care have worse health, wellbeing and life chances than similar children who stay with their families. The grief and loss that parents experience can worsen their own health.
Parents whose children are at risk of being taken into care often have complex health and social care needs. These can include substance use challenges, domestic violence, mental ill health, homelessness or having been through the criminal justice system. When people face combinations of these issues, this is described as ‘multiple disadvantage’.
Families who experience multiple disadvantage are much more likely to lose their children because of these issues. Families who do not receive the help they need after a child is removed are more likely to have another child taken into care.
We worked in partnership with the Centre for Academic Primary Care, Changing Futures Bristol, a government-funded programme that supports people experiencing multiple disadvantage, and a range of experts at various universities. It was funded through the NIHR Three Schools Prevention Programme.
Project aims
We aimed to:
- Facilitate workshops with social care practitioners who work with parents and children at risk of care proceedings, and people with lived experience, to inform future research.
- Review existing evidence and share knowledge to develop more ‘trauma-informed’ to better support families through care proceedings. This means tailoring child protection systems to take into account the ways trauma may have affected children and their families.
- Build relationships between academics, professionals and people with lived experience to scope future work together.
- Develop a research proposal to tackle the issues that families experience before, during and after children are taken into care.
What we did
A diverse group of academics, practitioners and people with lived experience fed into this work. We gathered insights to inform future projects:
- We ran workshops and meetings with almost 300 participants from across social work, healthcare, the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, and individuals with experience of having had children taken into care
- We combined these consultations with research evidence, policy and local practice, to inform further work to better support families through care proceedings.
What we found and what this means
We identified 10 key areas for improvement:
- Better co-ordination between services
- Providing support that recognises the impact of past trauma and avoids further harm to both families and staff
- Improving cultural understanding
- Offering more advocacy and peer support for parents
- Providing ongoing support after care proceedings end
- Enabling more involvement of fathers and wider family members
- Intervening earlier when families are struggling
- Providing better support for substance use issues
- Building stronger links between health services
- A greater focus on staff wellbeing
An illustration of these insights has been developed by Camille Aubry.
Systems should be designed to be:
- Accessible
- Provide the right support at the right time
- Take into account parents’ trauma and adverse life experiences.
Ultimately, this means making systems more trauma-informed, relationship-based, family-focused, evidence-based and multi-disciplinary.
By acting on these suggestions, services can potentially reduce harm, enhance trust, and empower parents to navigate the care system more effectively, while prioritising the wellbeing of children and families.
What next?
We are sharing the insights from our project with senior professionals in children’s and adults’ social care, alongside decision makers who support people experiencing multiple disadvantage.
We hope this project leads to research funding to tackle health inequalities experienced by these families.
Our long-term aim is to find ways of supporting families so that children can stay safely at home with their parents.
Links
- Project website: Support for parents and children through family breakdown and care proceedings – developing integrated, trauma-informed approaches
- Support for families through care proceedings: Developing integrated, evidence-based and trauma-informed approaches Download the insights and agenda setting report
- The 10 insights have been illustrated by Camille Aubry Download Camille's illustration
Lead collaborators
- Rose Nield, Changing Futures Bristol
- Kath Williams, Changing Futures Bristol
- Geraldine Macdonald, University of Bristol
- Dinithi Wijedasa, University of Bristol
- Rhiannon Barker, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
- Abisola Balogun-Katung, Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria, Newcastle University
- Ruth McGovern, Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria, Newcastle University
- Judi Kidger, University of Bristol
- Dougal Hargreaves, Imperial College London
ARC West Staff
Dr Rowan Brockman
Senior Research AssociatePartners on this project
University of Bristol
The University of Bristol is internationally renowned and one of the very best in the UK, due to its outstanding teaching and research, its superb facilities and highly talented students and staff. Its students thrive in a rich academic environment which is informed by world-leading research. It hosts the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research.