The removal of successive children by social workers from their parents seems to be an increasingly recognised problem. Between 2007 and 2014, more than 7,000 mothers, many of them young, were involved in repeated care cases. It is unclear what the rates are for fathers. In the past five years, the number of newborn babies being removed by family courts has increased 2.5 times.
Until recently, I was a child protection social worker in a hospital team and the majority of my work was related to assessing families during pregnancy, so this was a challenge I have faced far too often. I initiated far more care proceedings in recent years, and I had to remove newborn babies from their parents – often in the hospital ward following birth. It was horrendous, the worst part of my job, but I had conflicted feelings about the process; while I felt awful for the parents, I also felt relief that those tiny, vulnerable babies were safe.
I came into social work with a strong sense of social justice and passion for human rights, which I retain to this day. I wanted to ensure that children are not abused, neglected or – at worse – killed. The priority for any social worker should be to keep the safety and wellbeing of children at the forefront of all we do.
However, I also believe that children should remain with their families as much as possible. While it might lead to immediate safety, being taken from a family brings trauma in the guise of grief and a complete loss of identity. I constantly felt the burden of these competing ideals.
Sadly, I worked with women who had children repeatedly removed. This ranged from the second child to the eighth, and it was depressing to see how little we were able to do to change the situation. For me, the most difficult cases were where the women had been, or were, looked-after children. It felt like a double failure of the system.
But if I hadn’t made tough decisions and recommended the removal of these babies at birth, then how was I keeping them safe? I visited families daily on my way into work, in the weeks leading up to the birth, because the parents’ drug use was so extreme I worried they would not call an ambulance and the baby would be born in the home, filled with drug paraphernalia and risky people. As much as I felt for the parents, it would have been completely irresponsible of me to leave a baby with them, even with supervision.
Once the baby is removed and the judge is overseeing further assessments, the role of the social worker extends to ensuring that the care given to the child by family members or foster carers is good. The emphasis on assessments is difficult for parents. They are being tested at the most emotionally challenging time of their lives and they will also be experiencing grief and loss, not just the child.
If the judge decides that the baby cannot return to the parents then the social worker is already focusing on alternative care arrangements, perhaps with adopters. Right from the start, the parents don’t have anyone there solely to support them.
I don’t think the child’s social worker should take on this additional role, and I wonder if parents would want them to. I do feel, however, that there should be a statutory duty to provide support, be it by another social worker or through therapeutic services to help assist parents to make the changes necessary to keep their next child.
I have seen services where this agenda has come and gone. In an age of austerity and local authority cuts, the first things to go are those services that are not statutorily required. That is why we now have fewer early intervention projects and additional support in children’s services. In order to stop these tragic, cyclical experiences we must appreciate just how important it is to provide these services and then enact them into law. Anything less is unjust.
The Social Life Blog is written by people who work in or use social care services. If you’d like to write an article for the series, email socialcare@theguardian.com with your ideas.
Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views.
