Joint submission on Children’s Social Care to Parliament’s Education Committee, by Support Not Separation & Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign January 2024

Background

The Support Not Separation Coalition (co-ordinated by Legal Action for Women) includes organisations of single mothers, women of colour, women with disabilities, rape survivors, breastfeeding advocates, psychotherapists, men and individual social workers and former social workers who share our perspective. We defend mothers and children against unwarranted separation and the devaluing of the mother-child relationship. We are in contact with hundreds of mothers and other primary carers, children, family law professionals, organisations and concerned individuals. Our publications include Suffer the Little Children & their Mothers published in 2017 and updated research published in June 2021. 

The Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign (DMRC, co-ordinated by WinVisible)brings disabled mothers together to defend our right to have and to keep our children. We campaign to stop the cruelty and discrimination we face from social services and the family courts which use mothers’ requests for council support as an excuse to label us “unfit” and take our children from us. DMRC is part of the SNS coalition. 

 Our experience  

 The independent Review of Children’s Social Care (2022) recognised that poverty is a key factor in children being removed, as years of austerity have resulted in 14 million people living in poverty including 4.3 million children.   Poverty defined as “neglect” and domestic violence are the main reasons for removing children from mothers and families. Our experience of the prejudiced assumptions against mothers/families who are low income, working class, of colour, have disabilities and/or mental distress, have grown up in “care” . . . by social workers, children’s guardians, psychologists and judges, was borne out by the government’s Harm Report which found a pattern of “sexism, racism and classism” against mothers and children in the family courts. The fact that the courts operate in secret has enabled them to escape the discipline of public scrutiny, particularly in relation to judgements removing children from mothers and other primary carers, usually with devastating implications for the rest of those children’s lives, and for their mothers and families. Abuse of power by the state and profiteering by the “child protection” industry are crucial to understanding why so many children are in the “care” system, more now than at any time since the 1980s.

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