Supporting parents who have experienced recurrent care proceedings

Building evidence-informed work with parents who experience repeat care proceedings

Mothers and fathers experiencing repeat involvement in care proceedings is routine rather than exceptional. Social workers, lawyers and judges have long been aware that some parents return to court as respondents in care proceedings after having already experienced the removal of one or more children in previous proceedings. It is also recognised that a proportion of these parents return to court on many occasions and lose multiple children to public care and adoption. Initial research focused on mothers, but it is now clear that this is an issue for fathers as well.