MIKE SHAW, Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Child and Family Department at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
KAREN BROADHURST, Senior Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies, University of Manchester
JUDITH HARWIN, Professor of Social Work, Brunel University
BACHAR ALROUH, Research Fellow, Brunel University
SOPHIE KERSHAW, Service Manager Family Drug and Alcohol Court
CLAIRE MASON, Research Associate, University of Manchester, Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
The Family Justice Council
6th Annual Debate, held in December 2012, was on the following motion:
‘Women who have children removed to care, year after year, are being failed by
a system unable to respond to them as vulnerable adults needing support in
their own right’.
In this article, Mike Shaw and colleagues, reflect on
developments in research and practice since the debate, documenting new
research evidence and emerging practice initiatives. The article considers the
value of formal knowledge exchange events to progress wider national
conversation about pressing matters in family justice – in this case mothers
caught in a cycle of recurrent public law proceedings. The article concludes with some thoughts on
the Family Drug and Alcohol Court, and the topical issue of timescales within
family proceedings – for children, the courts and for parents. For parents with
complex difficulties, change does not come quickly, but
Mike notes society’s reluctance to see child protection in cases such as these
as a long-term problem worthy of sustained high quality intervention.
The full version of this article appears in the September 2014 issue of Family Law.
Online subscribers can access the full article here.
'Recurrent care proceedings:
Part 2: Young motherhood and the role of the court' will be published in the October issue of Family Law.
