This was one of the headlines in the news on Monday 23rd June on the BBC and in numerous broadsheet newspapers. A report carried out by two universities and funded by the Nuffield Foundation found that around one in three court applications by Local Authorities to take children into care involve the same birth mother.
Between 2007 and 2013 there were 15,645 applications made to the Family Court in respect of 22,790 children. Out of this number of children there were 7,143 birth mothers; some of the children would have been dealt with in the same set of proceedings.
The report found that younger mothers, between ages 14 and 19, are more likely to be subject to repeat applications and 50% of all first time applications involve mothers aged 24 or less. There is very little information available about the fathers of these children.
In the BBC commentary a recently retired Judge Nicolas Crichton stated that he had removed the 14th child from one birth mother and he knows two judges who each have removed the 15th child.
Sadly, this report is not new to family lawyers and other professionals practising in the area of child care law. Many birth mothers have a child removed from their care and go on to have another child who is the subject of a further set of court proceedings. Each case has to be treated on its merits; there can be no blanket decision for all children of a particular birth mother to be taken into care.
There is no single reason these women go on to have more children knowing that they are likely to be placed in care. Possibly there is some element of attempting to replace the child they have lost. Just because these mothers are deemed unable to parent their children, it does not mean that they do not suffer when their child is taken from them.
To read the report see: https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/new-evidence-recurrent-care-proceedings
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