Written evidence from PAUSE, Omolade Adedapo (CFA0007)

HOUSE OF LORDS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT 2014 SELECT COMMITTEE INQURY

Background and introduction

Pause is a national charity that works with women who have experienced or are at risk of having children removed from their care. We offer an intensive, trauma-informed model of support to women, so the removal of a child should never have to happen more than once. There are currently 29 Pause Practices across the UK and since 2013 Pause Practices have reached around 3,250 women who have had over 8,200 children removed from their care. You can find out more about the experiences of the women who work with Pause and our work in our short animation The difference a relationship makes.

There are also many other services that work with birth parents across the country. We all make up a Community of Practice of professionals supporting birth parents, sharing good practice and expertise to ensure parents get the best support possible. You can find out more about the Community of Practice here: Supporting parents who have experienced recurrent care proceedings (researchinpractice.org.uk)

Research has shown that women who experience recurrent removals of children from their care have experienced significant and multiple traumatic experiences in their childhoods and just less than half have been in the care systems themselves as children[1].

We know from research that at least one in four women will return to the family court within seven years, having previously lost a child through a court order and 40% of these women were looked after children themselves[2]. This rises to one in three for women who were in their teenage years when they had their first child. Some of these women will have experienced emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect[3]. At Pause over 40% of women who work with us have experience of care, in some areas, it is as high as 70%. Furthermore, 85% have had mental health issues and 87% have or are experiencing domestic abuse.

We welcome the Committee’s inquiry into the Children and Families Act 2014 and would be happy to support the inquiry with further written or oral evidence. We will restrict our submission to our area of expertise in supporting birth mothers and the Inquiry questions below:

•                  Are families receiving the right information, budgets, and support to assist them post-adoption?
•                  If there were to be a Children and Families Act 2022, what should it include and what might be the barriers to implementation?

Post-adoption support for birth parents and letterbox contact

Although there is a statutory duty for local areas to provide support to families post-adoption, women we work with tell often tell us that it is hard to access support services and it differs locally. Despite the 2002 Adoption and Children Act raising the profile of birth relatives by specifying the need for a post-adoption service, in practice, this may be very minimal and certainly does not mandate agencies to address birth mothers’ rehabilitative needs[4]. The absence of post-adoption support can mean birth parents are often left with unmet and complex needs which we see when women join the Pause programme. Similarly, the Adoption UK Adoption Barometer in 2021 found that 71% of adoptive parents feel that they face a continual struggle to get the help and support they need[5].

For the women who work with Pause, the relationship with their children is hugely important and maintaining a connection is consistently one of their top priorities. Yet these women and the professionals supporting them tell us that family time arrangements are not

always working. For most birth parents whose children have been adopted, their children and their adoptive families, something called letterbox contact is their main point of maintaining connections. Letterbox contact is effectively a letter or card that is sent once or twice a year – through social services or an adoption agency – between birth parents and adoptive families and children. Although there is a statutory duty to provide post-adoption support for families, in reality, birth parents receive very little support with letterbox contact or keeping any connection with their children.

Our Time to Deliver report highlighted how inadequate letterbox contact can be when it comes to creating family time and lifelong relationships between birth parents, children, and adoptive families. Women working with Pause tell us these issues make them feel like they are being set up to fail when they do not have all the information, they need to engage in letterbox contact[6].

“It is hard only getting a letter once a year but when there are issues like letters not turning up, it is mentally, emotionally, and physically draining. We then have to chase our letters from either the local authority or other agencies that are involved. This impacts not only us but on the siblings who are waiting for their letters too. We have made mistakes, but our letters are what we look forward to every year. It is the only connection to our children who we love and miss every day,” Vanessa, a Pause graduate.

The Pause Time to Deliver report found:

•                  Over half of professionals who support birth parents and responded to our online survey thought the quality of letterbox contact in their area was average, poor, or very poor (52% combined).  
•                  Nearly three quarters of adoptive families and women who work with Pause who responded to our online survey (70% and 69% respectively) stated their letterbox contact had never been reviewed.  
•                  The system is complicated and full of uncertainty. 60% of women who work with Pause and responded to our survey said that they were not sure what they can write in their letters. Similarly, adoptive parents also talked about the challenges they face in writing letters.  
•                  More support is needed in the system. Over 80% of professionals who support birth parents and responded to our survey said that having a designated person support contact would be effective in supporting relationships with children.  
•                  The system needs modernising. Letterbox contact has remained the typical plan over the last 20 years. Technological advances offer new, digital modes of communication. Where it is safe and in the best interest of the child(ren), these can be beneficial to family time arrangements, allowing adopted children to communicate in ways that are more familiar and interactive than a letter.

We recommend the following changes to the letterbox contact system:

1.              Increased support for birth parents and adoptive families post-adoption to enable them to take part in letterbox contact. 
2.              Letterbox contact arrangements should be reviewed after a specific amount of time 
3.              Digitally mediated post-adoption letterbox contact service should be investigated.  
4.              All local areas should have a letterbox coordinator or team 
5.              Improved communication and understanding about letterbox contact 

Future legislation

In addition to improving the support for families and children to take part in family time and contact arrangements, we believe three key areas could be improved through future legislation and/or policy. These recommendations were developed in partnership with women we support and Pause Practices and we have also made these recommendations to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. We believe that improvements in these areas have the potential to create a care system that recognises, understands, and counts women who have experienced the removal of a child from her care, and delivers support to these women so it never has to happen more than once.

1.                Statutory trauma-informed support

The current system does not recognise the experiences of women who have had children removed from their care more than once, the experiences of their children, and the level of trauma-informed support they need to create positive outcomes. Women who work with Pause often fall through the gaps in services and support - not being able to access things like early help and not meeting thresholds for support with mental health. Furthermore, due to the complex trauma women have experienced they can often be labelled as ‘hard to reach’ or ‘difficult to engage’ which makes it even less likely the support they need is accessible. Their difficulties are high enough to result in children being removed but not high enough to access some adult services. This challenge was recognised in the Care Review Case for Change document, as was the need for trauma-informed support for parents:

“Much is said about supporting families to keep children out of care, but less about supporting families after children are taken into care. A long-term failure to support these families in policy and practice has led to unacceptable entrenched and multi-generational cycles of adversity and child protection intervention,” Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, Case for Change[7]

“Given the effectiveness of these programmes and significant human and financial cost of repeat removals, it is crucial that high quality services are available to all parents who have had children removed, including fathers. A failure to do so is symptomatic of short termism in the system,” Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, Case for Change[8]

Furthermore, the independent evaluation of Pause makes the argument for trauma-informed support for women who have experienced the removal of children from their care and theorises the impact of this support on their children as well.

“The benefits reported through the evaluation indicate scope to explore the extension of the [Pause] model as follows: The findings provide convincing moral and fiscal arguments for the development nationally of trauma-informed relationship-based support for women who have had a child removed, to prevent the risk of recurrence (especially for young women) following the first removal of a child.[9]”

We recommend that:

•                  There should be a statutory duty for post-removal, trauma-informed support for parents after care proceedings when they have ended with the removal of a child.
•                  Trauma-informed therapeutic support should be available and easy to access for women, children, and families at any stage in the care system.

2.                Mult-agency panels brought together post-care proceedings

With 40% of women who experience recurrent removals of children from their care having experience of care themselves[10], the system is not working in preventing intergenerational repeat removals of children into care and the multiple and complex trauma that women and children experience because of those removals and whatever was happening to need to remove children to keep them safe. We recommend that:

•                  There is a multi-agency panel brought together aftercare proceedings have ended - learning lessons from the child being removed and putting in place a wide-ranging community response for the parents. This could follow the example of MARAC in domestic abuse (multi-agency risk assessment conference). This multi-agency response should not be focused on child protection or safeguarding but on understanding the support needed by parents.
•                  This panel would be responsible for agreeing on a package of care for any parent whose child has been removed, including a key worker to coordinate the plan, much in line with the team around a child approach. In areas where this a Pause or similar services this may be them, in other a mental health, or drug and alcohol or other specialist services.
•                  Data from these multi-agency panels should be collected and published nationally every year to ensure learning and good practice are spread throughout the country.

3.                Data collection

Data collection and accountability often drive changes in systems. Currently, data on women who've experienced removals of children from their care is not collected routinely which means that it is difficult to learn lessons and improve support for women. We recommend that:

•                  Data on parents who experience the removal of a child more than once should be collected and published nationally every year potentially through the SSDA903 process.

Meeting with women who work with Pause and have experienced the repeat removal of children from their care

Since 2013 Pause Practices across the country have reached over 3,000 women who have had over 8,000 children removed from their care. We are currently actively working with over 500 women and would be happy to arrange a meeting for Committee members with women who have worked with Pause, and Pause Practices, to hear more about their experiences and what would make a difference to their and their children’s lives. If you would like to set something up, please just contact Omolade on the email below.

We would also suggest meeting and talking to some of the services that make up the Community of Practice Services for parents who have experienced recurrent care proceedings (researchinpractice.org.uk)

Summary and conclusion

Our vision is a care system that recognises, understands, and counts women who have experienced the removal of a child from her care, and delivers support to these women so it never has to happen more than once.

Our recommendations to the Committee to achieve this are:

•                  There should be a statutory duty for post-removal, trauma-informed support for parents after care proceedings when they have ended with the removal of a child.
•                  Trauma-informed, therapeutic support should be available and easy to access for women, children, and families at any stage in the care system.
•                  Data on parents who experience the removal of a child more than once should be collected and published nationally every year potentially through the SSDA903 process.
•                  Increased support for birth parents and adoptive families post-adoption to enable them to take part in letterbox contact. 
•                  Letterbox contact arrangements should be reviewed after a specific amount of time 
•                  Digitally mediated post-adoption letterbox contact service should be investigated.  
•                  All local areas should have a letterbox coordinator or team 
•                  Improved communication and understanding about letterbox contact 

If you would like any more information or have any questions, please let Omolade Adedapo, Policy and Public Affairs Officer at Pause, know on Omolade.adedapo@pause.org.uk

April 2022

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