Karen Broadhurst
Biographic Data
| ID | 281509 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Karen Broadhurst |
| GIVEN NAMES | Karen |
| FAMILY NAME | Broadhurst |
| SIGNATURE | BROADHURST K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4781-8067 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 369 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
What happens after a child protection report during pregnancy? Using administrative data to explore 12-month outcomes
Despite the increasing use of prenatal reporting to child protection in Australia and elsewhere, few large studies have examined the consequences of prenatal reporting. This paper explores the association between prenatal reporting and subsequent child protection involvement in a large Australian jurisdiction, focusing on the timing, incidence and nature of this involvement. Administrative data were obtained for the population of pregnant women/i…
Parental risk factors and children entering out-of-home care
Parental difficulties, including mental ill health, substance misuse, domestic violence and learning disability have been associated with children entering out-of-home care. There is also evidence that these issues may co-occur within families. Understanding how the co-occurrence of these difficulties is associated with care entry is complex because they may co-occur in the same or different household members and have different impacts on the lik…
When they were taken it is like grieving’
There is growing recognition, in the UK and internationally, of the huge costs of recurrent appearances of parents in local authority care proceedings. This paper contributes to pressing policy and practice concerns to reduce recurrence. It presents qualitative longitudinal data from the first study of fathers' experiences of recurrent care proceedings in England. Demonstrating the emotional impact of repeat proceedings and successive loss of chi…
Understanding the mental health needs of mothers who have had children removed through the family court
Parents' experiences with child protection during pregnancy and post‐birth
Limited research has directly sought the input of parents involved in the child protection system during pregnancy and with their infants. As the focus of these policies and practices, parents have a unique and important insight not available to others, so it is vital to obtain their input. As part of a larger Australian study, qualitative interviews were undertaken with 13 parents asking about their views and experiences. Parents predominantly b…
Born into care
There is international concern about rising rates of children entering out-of-home care and what might be done to reduce the need for compulsory intervention in family life. Previous studies have analysed the associations with family-level variables, such as a presence of domestic abuse, parental mental health problems, and substance misuse in the parental household. Other studies have looked at multiple area-deprivation as a predictor of childho…
Scaling up research on family justice using large-scale administrative data
This article outlines the value of administrative data for family justice research. Although socio-legal scholars have extended their research beyond purely theoretical or doctrinal analyses, studies using large-scale digital datasets remain few in number. As new opportunities arise to link large-scale administrative datasets across health, education, welfare and justice, it is vital that the community of family justice researchers and analysts a…
Mental health and care needs of British children and young people aged 6–17
We conducted a scoping literature review based on a sample of 51 UK-based research articles published since 2004, focusing on children and young people aged 6–17 years. Taking the 2004 Office for National Statistics survey of child and adolescent mental health as a pivotal point in the development of the field, our aims were to identify the mental health difficulties featured in extant literature since the survey; uncover critical gaps; and propo…
Migrant Care Workers at the Intersection of Rural Belonging in Small English Communities
Shortage of staff in the private care sector brought migrant participants of this study to rural communities in northwest England. The care workers, fourteen highly skilled first-generation migrants, described experiences of feeling unsettled, despite residing in these communities for an average of nine years. Social divisions, such as their race, ethnicity, and gender, intersected in rural England to create an overwhelming, at times, feeling of …
Child removal as the gateway to further adversity
This article is focused on the immediate and enduring consequences of child removal, from the perspective of birth mothers. The article builds on the authors’ previous theoretical work on the collateral consequences of child removal and women’s vulnerability to repeat family court appearances. Interview data drawn from in-depth qualitative interviews with 72 birth mothers conducted in seven local authority areas are revisited to enable a focused …
Parental Non-Engagement within Child Protection Services—How Can Understandings of Complex Trauma and Epistemic Trust Help
Building on the findings from the national study of mothers in recurrent care proceedings in England, this paper proposes that the concepts of complex trauma and epistemic trust may help explain parents’ difficulties in engaging with child protection services. With the aim of advancing theoretical knowledge, qualitative data drawn from interviews with 72 women who have experienced repeat care proceedings are revisited, with a focus on women’s dev…
I Had No Hope, I Had No Help at All”
This article presents data from the first large-scale study of fathers involved in repeat (or recurrent) care proceedings in England. The project complements important research on mothers and recurrence. It consisted of three elements: an analysis of population-level administrative data from the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), a survey of fathers in pre-proceedings and care proceedings, and a qualitative longitudina…
Tensions and contradictions in family court innovation with high risk parents
Introducing Social Science Evidence in Family Court Decision-Making and Adjudication
This article examines the use of social science research in case level decision-making and adjudication in public and private family law proceedings from the perspectives of judges and lawyers in England and Wales. To provide a context for our analysis, we first review a limited, but nevertheless important, body of international literature concerned with the place of social science in the family courts. We then turn to our empirical material, dra…
Linked lives
In the wake of a “national care crisis” in England, an increasing number of parents return to the family court as repeat respondents in care proceedings and lose successive children from their care. Despite considerable progress in understanding the trends and patterns of mothers' (re)appearances in care proceedings, knowledge of fathers and of parents' family relationships in recurrent care proceedings remains very limited. Whilst such relations…
Child and Parent Outcomes in the London Family Drug and Alcohol Court Five Years On
Parental substance misuse is a major social problem of international concern and frequent cause of referral to child protection agencies and court proceedings due to the significant child harm it can cause. Family drug treatment courts have emerged as one of the most promising interventions in recent years to enhance prospects for reunification, substance misuse cessation, and cost savings on out of home care. Despite the better results of Family…
Birth Parents and the Collateral Consequences of Court-ordered Child Removal
This article aims to capture the full range of consequences that birth parents face, following court-ordered removal of their children on account of child protection concerns. With references to legislative and policy responses in England, the USA, and Australia, we argue that states reinforce parents’ exclusion, where the full gamut of challenges these parents face is poorly understood. Drawing on a wealth of criminological research concerned wi…
Social work education in a time of national crisis in Greece
Since 2010, Greece has experienced an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis, which continues to have tremendous social impact. Austerity measures and policy cuts have included a dis-investment in social work and social care and more recently the abolition of one of the four national Social Work Departments providing qualifying social work education. In this context, this study addresses the following question: how does pre-qualifying soc…
Vulnerable birth mothers and repeat losses of infants to public care
This article aims to advance debate about the ethics of targeted reproductive health care for birth mothers who have experienced recurrent care proceedings.Making reference to new research evidence that reports the scale of the problem of repeat care proceedings in England, the article considers the role that enhanced reproductive health care might play in helping mothers exit a cycle of care proceedings. Emerging practice initiatives are introdu…
Connecting Events in Time to Identify a Hidden Population
There is international concern about the population of birth mothers who experience repeat court-ordered removal of children. This article reports the findings from a population profiling study that provides the first picture of the scale of women's repeat involvement in public law proceedings in England. Based on national records from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) (n = 43,541 birth mothers, 2007–14), two su…
Social Work beyond the VDU
This paper foregrounds corporeal co-presence in social work and provides a detailed discussion of the value of face-to-face practices. Informed by an inter-disciplinary body of literature, the paper argues that the concept of co-presence has much to offer the community of social work practitioners and academics in England and Wales as we strive to reconfigure professional practice beyond the VDU (virtual display unit). Moreover, discussion is of …
Access to Justice for families? Legal advocacy for parents where children are on the ‘edge of care’
This paper examines the issue of professional advocacy for parents in England following the local authority issuing the Letter Before Proceedings when the concerns about the welfare of a child are so serious the local authority are considering applying for a care order. We explore the tensions of providing a legal advocacy service for parents – drawing on a study of 57 cases, scrutinised as part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Cafcass Pre-Procee…
Maternal outcasts
This paper concerns policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption. The central argument of this paper is that, to date, the rehabilitative needs of this population of birth mothers have fallen outside the remit of statutory agencies. Moreover, the extant literature offers little by way of definitive findings in respect of the size of this population or r…
Moral agency in everyday safeguarding work
This article engages with international concerns about the negative impact of an expanding neoliberal project on the professional values of social work. Examining theoretical debates about human agency, a case is made for cultivating a moral sensibility in the practitioner workforce to resist the excesses of the neoliberal paradigm. Rejecting depictions of the practitioner as ‘institutional dope’, discussion excavates the early work of classical …
Thinking Systemically--Thinking Politically
Prompted by findings from the Munro Review of Child Protection, this paper provides a critical analysis of the combination of changes that appear to have undermined social workers ability to develop strong partnerships with children and their families. Here, we engage with a number of now familiar lines of critique that have exposed the negative consequences of aspects of New Labours modernisation agenda (such as excessive standardisation). Howev…
Performing 'Initial Assessment
This article draws attention to the faulty design elements at the front-door of children's local authority services, arguing that current attempts to increase safety, through the formalization of organizational procedures and their enactment by IT systems, may have had the contrary effect. We argue that the analysis of errors in organizational settings should focus on immanent systemic weaknesses, particularly the ‘latent conditions’ for error th…
Risk, Instrumentalism and the Humane Project in Social Work
This paper addresses growing professional discontents with the increasing formalisation of social work practice exerted through systems of risk management and audit. Drawing on an ESRC-funded study of social work practices in children's statutory services, this paper provides a critique of instrumental approaches to risk management in social work. Through the discussion of three illustrative case examples, we argue that risk management is an inhe…
Children's services in the iron cage of performance management
Wastell D, White S, Broadhurst K, Peckover S, Pithouse A. Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of Švejkism Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 310–320 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. Recent UK government reforms have introduced a range of measures to regulate practice in child welfare, with professiona…
Birth Parents and the Collateral Consequences of Court-ordered Child Removal
This article aims to capture the full range of consequences that birth parents face, following court-ordered removal of their children on account of child protection concerns. With references to legislative and policy responses in England, the USA, and Australia, we argue that states reinforce parents’ exclusion, where the full gamut of challenges these parents face is poorly understood. Drawing on a wealth of criminological research concerned wi…
When policy o’erleaps itself
Information technology plays a pivotal role in New Labour’s modernization programme. Here we report findings from a 2 year ethnographic study of the impact and origin of one such system, the Integrated Children’s System, which has been deployed in statutory children’s social care. We show how the ICS, by attempting to micro-manage work through a rigid performance management regime, and a centrally prescribed practice model, has disrupted the prof…
Engaging parents and carers with family support services
Maternal outcasts
This paper concerns policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption. The central argument of this paper is that, to date, the rehabilitative needs of this population of birth mothers have fallen outside the remit of statutory agencies. Moreover, the extant literature offers little by way of definitive findings in respect of the size of this population or r…
Vulnerable birth mothers and repeat losses of infants to public care
This article aims to advance debate about the ethics of targeted reproductive health care for birth mothers who have experienced recurrent care proceedings.Making reference to new research evidence that reports the scale of the problem of repeat care proceedings in England, the article considers the role that enhanced reproductive health care might play in helping mothers exit a cycle of care proceedings. Emerging practice initiatives are introdu…
Thinking Systemically--Thinking Politically
Prompted by findings from the Munro Review of Child Protection, this paper provides a critical analysis of the combination of changes that appear to have undermined social workers ability to develop strong partnerships with children and their families. Here, we engage with a number of now familiar lines of critique that have exposed the negative consequences of aspects of New Labours modernisation agenda (such as excessive standardisation). Howev…
Partnership and the limits of procedure
April 2008 saw the introduction of a new Public Law Outline (PLO) that aims to improve judicial case management of Public Law Children Act cases. The PLO is a response to concerns about the rising number of care proceedings, associated costs, and the difficulties of achieving case resolution given this volume. Based on an ethos that care proceedings should be avoided wherever possible, the new approach to case management, which places significant…
Connecting Events in Time to Identify a Hidden Population
There is international concern about the population of birth mothers who experience repeat court-ordered removal of children. This article reports the findings from a population profiling study that provides the first picture of the scale of women's repeat involvement in public law proceedings in England. Based on national records from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) (n = 43,541 birth mothers, 2007–14), two su…
Social Work beyond the VDU
This paper foregrounds corporeal co-presence in social work and provides a detailed discussion of the value of face-to-face practices. Informed by an inter-disciplinary body of literature, the paper argues that the concept of co-presence has much to offer the community of social work practitioners and academics in England and Wales as we strive to reconfigure professional practice beyond the VDU (virtual display unit). Moreover, discussion is of …
Family Life and Family Support
Children missing from school systems
The aim of this study was to identify and re‐present the experiences and views of a sample of children who have been ‘missing’ from education, and those of their parents/carers. Access to this hard to reach population has been possible as a result of an innovative interventionist tracking system, responding to pupil mobility, developed by the Education Authority in the fieldwork area. Semistructured interviews were conducted with parents/carers, …
Migrant Care Workers at the Intersection of Rural Belonging in Small English Communities
Shortage of staff in the private care sector brought migrant participants of this study to rural communities in northwest England. The care workers, fourteen highly skilled first-generation migrants, described experiences of feeling unsettled, despite residing in these communities for an average of nine years. Social divisions, such as their race, ethnicity, and gender, intersected in rural England to create an overwhelming, at times, feeling of …
Access to Justice for families? Legal advocacy for parents where children are on the ‘edge of care’
This paper examines the issue of professional advocacy for parents in England following the local authority issuing the Letter Before Proceedings when the concerns about the welfare of a child are so serious the local authority are considering applying for a care order. We explore the tensions of providing a legal advocacy service for parents – drawing on a study of 57 cases, scrutinised as part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Cafcass Pre-Procee…
Social work education in a time of national crisis in Greece
Since 2010, Greece has experienced an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis, which continues to have tremendous social impact. Austerity measures and policy cuts have included a dis-investment in social work and social care and more recently the abolition of one of the four national Social Work Departments providing qualifying social work education. In this context, this study addresses the following question: how does pre-qualifying soc…
Parental Non-Engagement within Child Protection Services—How Can Understandings of Complex Trauma and Epistemic Trust Help
Building on the findings from the national study of mothers in recurrent care proceedings in England, this paper proposes that the concepts of complex trauma and epistemic trust may help explain parents’ difficulties in engaging with child protection services. With the aim of advancing theoretical knowledge, qualitative data drawn from interviews with 72 women who have experienced repeat care proceedings are revisited, with a focus on women’s dev…
Social Work in the Laboratory
In cognitive ergonomics, laboratory experimentation using computer-based simulations (microworlds) has played a significant role in understanding human decision making and reasoning. In this paper, we describe the design and deployment of a social work microworld (BRIGIT), which simulates the electronic recording systems now widely implemented in UK children's services. BRIGIT provides a fabricated but realistic social work environment, enabling …
Revisiting children ‘home on trial’ in the context of current concerns about the costs and effectiveness of the looked‐after children system
Statute and practice relating to s.31 part IV of The Children Act 1989 allow children subject to care orders to be placed at home with their parent(s). It is not uncommon for the courts to accept a plan for children to return home at the final hearing of care proceedings at which full care orders are granted. In such instances, children retain looked‐after status but, in terms of their day‐to‐day care, are looked after by parent(s). Whilst there …
Linked lives
In the wake of a “national care crisis” in England, an increasing number of parents return to the family court as repeat respondents in care proceedings and lose successive children from their care. Despite considerable progress in understanding the trends and patterns of mothers' (re)appearances in care proceedings, knowledge of fathers and of parents' family relationships in recurrent care proceedings remains very limited. Whilst such relations…
Parental risk factors and children entering out-of-home care
Parental difficulties, including mental ill health, substance misuse, domestic violence and learning disability have been associated with children entering out-of-home care. There is also evidence that these issues may co-occur within families. Understanding how the co-occurrence of these difficulties is associated with care entry is complex because they may co-occur in the same or different household members and have different impacts on the lik…
Parents' experiences with child protection during pregnancy and post‐birth
Limited research has directly sought the input of parents involved in the child protection system during pregnancy and with their infants. As the focus of these policies and practices, parents have a unique and important insight not available to others, so it is vital to obtain their input. As part of a larger Australian study, qualitative interviews were undertaken with 13 parents asking about their views and experiences. Parents predominantly b…
I Had No Hope, I Had No Help at All”
This article presents data from the first large-scale study of fathers involved in repeat (or recurrent) care proceedings in England. The project complements important research on mothers and recurrence. It consisted of three elements: an analysis of population-level administrative data from the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), a survey of fathers in pre-proceedings and care proceedings, and a qualitative longitudina…
Child and Parent Outcomes in the London Family Drug and Alcohol Court Five Years On
Parental substance misuse is a major social problem of international concern and frequent cause of referral to child protection agencies and court proceedings due to the significant child harm it can cause. Family drug treatment courts have emerged as one of the most promising interventions in recent years to enhance prospects for reunification, substance misuse cessation, and cost savings on out of home care. Despite the better results of Family…
Engaging parents and carers with family support services
Family Life and Family Support
Children missing from school systems
The aim of this study was to identify and re‐present the experiences and views of a sample of children who have been ‘missing’ from education, and those of their parents/carers. Access to this hard to reach population has been possible as a result of an innovative interventionist tracking system, responding to pupil mobility, developed by the Education Authority in the fieldwork area. Semistructured interviews were conducted with parents/carers, …
Revisiting children ‘home on trial’ in the context of current concerns about the costs and effectiveness of the looked‐after children system
Statute and practice relating to s.31 part IV of The Children Act 1989 allow children subject to care orders to be placed at home with their parent(s). It is not uncommon for the courts to accept a plan for children to return home at the final hearing of care proceedings at which full care orders are granted. In such instances, children retain looked‐after status but, in terms of their day‐to‐day care, are looked after by parent(s). Whilst there …
Sure Start and the `re-authorization' of Section 47 child protection practices
In a recent Sure Start evaluation report (Barnes et al. 2006) it was argued that an increase in Section 47 enquiries and registrations on the Child Protection Register in Sure Start Local Programme Areas was an achievement, reflecting better and/or earlier identification of need and enhanced collaboration between agencies to identify and support families. This paper critically engages with these conclusions, arguing that they are in danger of enc…
Parental Help-Seeking and the Moral Order. Notes for Policy-Makers and Parenting Practitioners on ‘the First Port of Call’ and ‘No One to Turn To’
The topic ‘help-seeking’ is of international interest. However, there is only a very limited literature concerning help-seeking in child welfare and a distinct dearth of studies that have examined the social organisation of parents’ decisions to seek help. Recent developments in child welfare services in England and Wales have seen the introduction of a raft of initiatives that aim to deliver parenting support to a broader range of parents; howev…
Partnership and the limits of procedure
April 2008 saw the introduction of a new Public Law Outline (PLO) that aims to improve judicial case management of Public Law Children Act cases. The PLO is a response to concerns about the rising number of care proceedings, associated costs, and the difficulties of achieving case resolution given this volume. Based on an ethos that care proceedings should be avoided wherever possible, the new approach to case management, which places significant…
Children's services in the iron cage of performance management
Wastell D, White S, Broadhurst K, Peckover S, Pithouse A. Children's services in the iron cage of performance management: street‐level bureaucracy and the spectre of Švejkism Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 310–320 © 2010 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and International Journal of Social Welfare. Recent UK government reforms have introduced a range of measures to regulate practice in child welfare, with professiona…
When policy o’erleaps itself
Information technology plays a pivotal role in New Labour’s modernization programme. Here we report findings from a 2 year ethnographic study of the impact and origin of one such system, the Integrated Children’s System, which has been deployed in statutory children’s social care. We show how the ICS, by attempting to micro-manage work through a rigid performance management regime, and a centrally prescribed practice model, has disrupted the prof…
Performing 'Initial Assessment
This article draws attention to the faulty design elements at the front-door of children's local authority services, arguing that current attempts to increase safety, through the formalization of organizational procedures and their enactment by IT systems, may have had the contrary effect. We argue that the analysis of errors in organizational settings should focus on immanent systemic weaknesses, particularly the ‘latent conditions’ for error th…
Risk, Instrumentalism and the Humane Project in Social Work
This paper addresses growing professional discontents with the increasing formalisation of social work practice exerted through systems of risk management and audit. Drawing on an ESRC-funded study of social work practices in children's statutory services, this paper provides a critique of instrumental approaches to risk management in social work. Through the discussion of three illustrative case examples, we argue that risk management is an inhe…
Contact between children in out-of-home placements and their family and friends networks
This paper provides a detailed narrative review of the current knowledge base regarding family contact for children in out-of-home foster, kinship and residential placements. The review considers the research base around the familiar topics of the relationship between contact and outcomes for children, the perspectives of children, parents and carers in respect of contact and contact between siblings. It also discusses research evidence around em…
Social Work in the Laboratory
In cognitive ergonomics, laboratory experimentation using computer-based simulations (microworlds) has played a significant role in understanding human decision making and reasoning. In this paper, we describe the design and deployment of a social work microworld (BRIGIT), which simulates the electronic recording systems now widely implemented in UK children's services. BRIGIT provides a fabricated but realistic social work environment, enabling …
Moral agency in everyday safeguarding work
This article engages with international concerns about the negative impact of an expanding neoliberal project on the professional values of social work. Examining theoretical debates about human agency, a case is made for cultivating a moral sensibility in the practitioner workforce to resist the excesses of the neoliberal paradigm. Rejecting depictions of the practitioner as ‘institutional dope’, discussion excavates the early work of classical …
Thinking Systemically--Thinking Politically
Prompted by findings from the Munro Review of Child Protection, this paper provides a critical analysis of the combination of changes that appear to have undermined social workers ability to develop strong partnerships with children and their families. Here, we engage with a number of now familiar lines of critique that have exposed the negative consequences of aspects of New Labours modernisation agenda (such as excessive standardisation). Howev…
Access to Justice for families? Legal advocacy for parents where children are on the ‘edge of care’
This paper examines the issue of professional advocacy for parents in England following the local authority issuing the Letter Before Proceedings when the concerns about the welfare of a child are so serious the local authority are considering applying for a care order. We explore the tensions of providing a legal advocacy service for parents – drawing on a study of 57 cases, scrutinised as part of the Coventry and Warwickshire Cafcass Pre-Procee…
Maternal outcasts
This paper concerns policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption. The central argument of this paper is that, to date, the rehabilitative needs of this population of birth mothers have fallen outside the remit of statutory agencies. Moreover, the extant literature offers little by way of definitive findings in respect of the size of this population or r…
Social Work beyond the VDU
This paper foregrounds corporeal co-presence in social work and provides a detailed discussion of the value of face-to-face practices. Informed by an inter-disciplinary body of literature, the paper argues that the concept of co-presence has much to offer the community of social work practitioners and academics in England and Wales as we strive to reconfigure professional practice beyond the VDU (virtual display unit). Moreover, discussion is of …
Vulnerable birth mothers and repeat losses of infants to public care
This article aims to advance debate about the ethics of targeted reproductive health care for birth mothers who have experienced recurrent care proceedings.Making reference to new research evidence that reports the scale of the problem of repeat care proceedings in England, the article considers the role that enhanced reproductive health care might play in helping mothers exit a cycle of care proceedings. Emerging practice initiatives are introdu…
Connecting Events in Time to Identify a Hidden Population
There is international concern about the population of birth mothers who experience repeat court-ordered removal of children. This article reports the findings from a population profiling study that provides the first picture of the scale of women's repeat involvement in public law proceedings in England. Based on national records from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) (n = 43,541 birth mothers, 2007–14), two su…
Social work education in a time of national crisis in Greece
Since 2010, Greece has experienced an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis, which continues to have tremendous social impact. Austerity measures and policy cuts have included a dis-investment in social work and social care and more recently the abolition of one of the four national Social Work Departments providing qualifying social work education. In this context, this study addresses the following question: how does pre-qualifying soc…
Birth Parents and the Collateral Consequences of Court-ordered Child Removal
This article aims to capture the full range of consequences that birth parents face, following court-ordered removal of their children on account of child protection concerns. With references to legislative and policy responses in England, the USA, and Australia, we argue that states reinforce parents’ exclusion, where the full gamut of challenges these parents face is poorly understood. Drawing on a wealth of criminological research concerned wi…
Child and Parent Outcomes in the London Family Drug and Alcohol Court Five Years On
Parental substance misuse is a major social problem of international concern and frequent cause of referral to child protection agencies and court proceedings due to the significant child harm it can cause. Family drug treatment courts have emerged as one of the most promising interventions in recent years to enhance prospects for reunification, substance misuse cessation, and cost savings on out of home care. Despite the better results of Family…
Tensions and contradictions in family court innovation with high risk parents
Introducing Social Science Evidence in Family Court Decision-Making and Adjudication
This article examines the use of social science research in case level decision-making and adjudication in public and private family law proceedings from the perspectives of judges and lawyers in England and Wales. To provide a context for our analysis, we first review a limited, but nevertheless important, body of international literature concerned with the place of social science in the family courts. We then turn to our empirical material, dra…
Sociology (30 works) · Political science (26 works) · Psychology (24 works) · Child Abuse and Trauma (18 works) · Medicine (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (17 works) · Child Welfare and Adoption (13 works) · Developmental psychology (12 works) · Public relations (10 works)