Family court ‘recycles’ one in three young mums

At least 1 in 4 women will return to the family court, having previously lost a child through court order, and the chances of having a child removed increase to at least 1 in 3 for the youngest women who were teenagers at the birth of their first child. A team of researchers, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and led by Professor Karen Broadhurst from Lancaster University, have updated initial findings, presented last year, confirming that a 'hidden population' of mothers are caught up in a cycle of family court proceedings, with one child after another being removed from women's care. This new research identifies, for the first time, the relationship between young motherhood and the risk of court-ordered removal of children and new statistics concerning removal at birth. The paper covering this new research, entitled 'Connecting events in time to identify a hidden population: Birth mothers and their children in recurrent care proceedings in England' will be published in the British Journal of Social Work this week. The co-investigators are based at Lancaster University, Brunel University, London and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Further detailed case file review work is ongoing and the study will conclude in June 2016. The study uses electronic records held by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) and findings are based on all care applications made by Local Authorities in England over a seven year period from 2007 to 2014.