Women in Care Proceedings: new statistics indicate investment in prevention is insufficient to prevent return to court
Women in Care Proceedings: new statistics indicate investment in prevention is insufficient to prevent return to court
New research indicates that women in care proceedings, continue to face a high risk of appearing in repeat sets of proceedings – because investment in preventative services is not yet sufficient. When women appear in family court care proceedings, they can lose children permanently from their care.
According to new research, over 95,000 mothers appeared in care proceedings in England and Wales, during the past decade. Too many of these mothers unfortunately appeared in more than one set of care proceedings.
The main findings from the new report are:
- Almost a decade on from the first research with this focus, approximately 1 in every 4 mothers are at risk of return. This risk rises to 1 in 3 for the youngest mothers
- Mothers in England and Wales face the same risk of appearing in care proceedings, as they did when earlier benchmark studies were published
The new report builds on a programme of work led by the Centre for Child and Family Justice research at Lancaster University led by Professor Karen Broadhurst and is published by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. The team first captured the scale of repeat care proceedings in 2015[i]. This programme of work prompted multiple new preventative services at a local level, preventing return to the family courts for many women.
However, the new statistics indicate that as yet, new preventative services are not doing enough to prevent care proceedings, because national statistics regarding return remain largely the same in England and Wales. Although service evaluation clearly indicates that timely and intensive therapeutic help can help women avoid the loss of their children, help is not consistently available to all women in England and Wales[ii]. In addition, budget cuts, have meant some services have closed.
In addition, the actual number of mothers in recurrent proceedings has markedly increased since 2015, because more and more families have found themselves involved in care proceedings.
The new benchmarking report also offers the following new evidence for England and Wales:
- At a first repeat set of care proceedings concerning babies, few babies will return to their parents’ care. In the largest proportion of cases, a plan for adoption is agreed.
- In contrast, very few supervision orders are made for babies, with these orders typically made when children return to their parents’ care.
- Furthermore, the risk of mothers returning to court is higher if the first set of proceedings results in a plan for adoption.
- The new statistics also evidence that after a first return to court, the risk of another return increases.
New findings are also very concerning because a high proportion (more than 40%) of mothers who appear in repeat care proceedings with a baby, are estimated to be aged 14-19 years when they first gave birth.
In this new report, regional differences in rates of recurrent proceedings were also examined. In England, there is a divide between London and the South, and the Midlands and the North, which corresponds with related research on new-born babies in care proceedings in England[iii]. The starkest differences were found between London and the North East. The impact of budget cuts and reduction in preventative services in the North East has been widely reported. In addition, the North East currently has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies.
The summary can be found in English and Welsh
The full report can be found in English and Welsh
The study is based on mothers who appeared in care proceedings in England and Wales between 2011/12 and 2020/21.
The research was based on full-service population data produced routinely by Cafcass and Cafcass Cymru. Records were accessed via the SAIL (Secure Anonymised Information Linkage) Databank at Swansea University.
[i] Broadhurst, K., Alrouh, B., Yeend, E., Harwin, J., Shaw, M., Pilling, M., Mason, C. and Kershaw, S. (2015). Connecting events in time to identify a hidden population: birth mothers and their children in recurrent care proceedings in England. British Journal of Social Work, 45(8), 2241-2260. (open access)
[ii] Mason, C. and Wilkinson J. (2021) Services for parents who have experienced recurrent care proceedings: Where are we now? Findings from mapping of locally developed services in England – Research Report.
[iii] Broadhurst, K., Alrouh, B., Mason, C., Ward, H., Holmes, L., Ryan, M. and Bowyer, S. (2018) Born into care: Newborns in care proceedings in England. London: Nuffield Family Justice Observatory