When facing child removal, mothers with multiple unmet needs find themselves at the centre of a system that they believe doesn’t understand them - and often fails them. For mothers who are having a child/children removed as a result of homelessness or housing instability, the pain, loss and sense of injustice, is compounded when the cause of their homelessness is a consequence of fleeing domestic abuse and/or intimate partner violence.
A 2024 research paper by Dr Sadie Parr, from Sheffield Hallam University, explored the experiences of women in this position. Her use of the concept of haunting and the theory of ‘hauntology’ provided a powerful lens through which to engage, and empathise, with the experiences of women who have had a child, or children removed from them.
In this webinar, you will be invited to develop a strengthened and deepened level of empathy for their lived experience, and their often-complex lives.
If domestic abuse causes a mother to flee her home to safeguard herself and her children, how can housing and social care work together intentionally and holistically to keep mothers and their children safe and together?
This webinar presents an opportunity to pause and reflect on the needs of mothers. You will be asked to consider a trauma and culturally informed perspective, the limitations of resources and policy, how those limitations can lead to women falling through the gaps in services, and to learn more about what works to keep mothers and their children together. How can teams collaborate, across services to be the safety net needed, to prevent women from falling through?
Expect to leave feeling motivated to challenge and disrupt the systemic forces that may lead to mothers having their children removed.
