New research has emerged which confirms that women who have their children removed from them and placed into foster care, are more likely to commit suicide than mothers whose children are not fostered.
An article in The Conversation written by PhD student at the University of Manitoba, Canada, highlights key research which shows an increased mortality rate for mothers who lose their children to the care system.
Wall-Wieler explains that while mothers whose children are taken into care sometimes have underlying health conditions, the studies take those pre-existing conditions into account, meaning that the data is directly linked to the impact of losing a child to the care system.
The first study, published in December 2017 in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, was co-produced by Wall-Wieler, and examines suicide attempts and suicide completions among mothers whose children were placed in care. The researchers discovered that suicide rates among these women was almost three times higher and the death rate almost four times higher than those mothers whose children had not gone into foster care.
More research co-produced by Wall-Wieler and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, in March 2018, found that mothers whose children were placed in care were almost five times more likely to die from avoidable causes such as unintentional injury and suicide, and almost three times more like to die from unavoidable causes, including car accidents and heart disease.
A third study, published in the British Medical Journal’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, in October 2017, shows that when a mother loses her child to the care system, her physical and mental health become significantly worse.
While the above research does not address the impact the care system has on fathers, it’s likely that this data will emerge in time.
The research, which applies to both the US and UK child protection sectors, highlights the importance of thinking about the effects the care system has on parents and the need to address the current policy and legislation around foster care and adoption. Wall-Wieler recommends more support services for grieving parents, and while this is an important point for parents who have already lost children to care, it does not address the underlying realities of children’s social care today, which is not fit for purpose.
It is also a timely reminder that policies which seek to wrench children away from parents rather than offer families support wherever possible, is both misguided and dangerous. President of the Family Division, Andrew McFarlane, horrified the British public last week when he suggested that care orders should be made while children were still in the womb. The family court process is deeply traumatic, and orders seeking future removal of children who are currently unborn would without a doubt lead to more mothers committing suicide, and taking their unborn children with them.
Setting aside the legal problems pre-birth care orders create, which McFarlane should be familiar with, the research is a sobering reminder for our senior judges that moving away from more holistic solutions could lead to many more deaths inside the family justice system.
Many thanks to Susan for sharing this article with us.
Chart Source: Fostering in England 2016 to 2017
Researching Reform 
This is not surprising news and it would be interesting to hear the statistics relating to fathers who have their children removed, too. If the suggestion by the President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane, that Family Courts should be made even more secret is implemented, we should expect far more suicides of affected parents.
If it’s slipped under your radar, Sir Andrew suggests that the identities of social workers, doctors and ‘expert witnesses’ should be removed from officially published judgments. Also the names of councils that seize children from their parents should also be kept from the public; even the name of the town where the court made its decision may be suppressed.
All this to ‘protect children’. I agree with John Hemming who commented: ‘These rules do not protect children, they protect the people who run the court system. By allowing bad practice to go on in secret you are really putting children at greater risk’. May I add that parents matter too – and children often become parents themselves in due course. If it’s possible, keep families together!
My information is from a small article in the Daily Mail, page 44 Saturday edition.
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Hi Roger, many thanks. Definitely not missed me, that’s tomorrow’s post x
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There is almost a total lack of support to mothers whose children are removed from them. Not only do they have to deal with this trauma, but they then have to fight for their children surrounded by professionals who in many cases fall in line with the last report written. Essentially they feel trapped in an ever increasing mountain of evidence (constructive to a degree) that appears insurmountable. At time social workers create incredibly difficult situations where even the strongest in society would respond at the injustice. They then use the evidence labelling the individual as emotionally unstable.
There is lack of independent support through this process and I include advocacy that is non-legal within this. What with the judgemental nature of society, women are twice thwarted by their children’s removal- they are meant to be motherly. There is a need for support before, during and after for the individual and the family where there are difficulties.
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it would seem McFarlane is going to take us even further back to the dark ages with his Draconian ideas. this excuse of a Human being needs to be ejected Asap before even more parents fall into the Abyss of educated Madness.
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It is too easy to compare ordinary mothers, fathers, and parents in general, with those parents who have historically foisted their children in to the sole care of nannies, nursemaids and laterly – au pairs; and so decide there is a fundamental lack of concern among those parents who suffer so much when robbed of their parenthood.
It is a clear breakdown in trust, and in the fundamental rights of parents to bring up the children they have conceived and borne.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
It is too easy to compare ordinary mothers, fathers, and parents in general, with those parents who have historically foisted their children in to the sole care of nannies, nursemaids and laterly – au pairs; and so decide there is a fundamental lack of concern among those parents who suffer so much when robbed of their parenthood.
It is a clear breakdown in trust, and in the fundamental rights of parents to bring up the children they have conceived and borne.
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Yes, I agree Maureen. It would typically be the upper classes who would historically farm their children out to nursemaids, governesses and be very distanced from day to day care. Today, we see this continue among the upper echelons with nannies, boarding schools etc and judges are among this social strata commonly engaging in these practices. Perhaps this approach to this strata of society, normalises the removal of children from parents.
Whilst, Mr Justice Baker, now of the Court of Appeal, would frequently inform the public in his published judgments from the High Court, as to how overworked judges are – ingratiating fellow judges in the appeal process, this discourse is simply not met in reality. What we actually discover is that they are salaries of £100,000+ for DJ , £120,000 for CJ and holidays in terms of courts on go slow (Aug and Sept, plus various holiday period and the notion that they certainly do not sit everyday and largely give ex tempore judgments that they can alter after giving) Further, their reality is very different than that of families in the lower socio-economic strata – who traditionally have been raised within the family and with tight bonds, with their being supportive communities and where children were not foisted out to pseudo parent figures as represented a choice in the upper echelons. However, these neo-liberal times are not good times for these low level socio-economic families.
It would be interesting to gain information on Family Court Judges socio-economic background and their own belief systems and what training the Ministry of Justice employs to negate biases – a perceptive reality.
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Thank you for boldly writing this article. They leave the majority of us mothers facing this issue they caused us removing our children with nothing but trauma, sucide and death as an option. They don’t care about what happens to us.
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There seems to be a troubling pattern where many of the higher educated of the country who retain positions of power never really had the loving bond of their parents due to being looked after by Nannies and later sent to boarding schools etc.this without doubt would lead to a complete absence of empathy.
is it any wonder why the cruelty of the SS and family courts have gone almost completely unchallenged by Govt ministers, MPs and Politicians.
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It seems emotional ‘detachment’ is considered normal among the professionals who have the power to remove. I was robbed of my child for being ‘over-protective’ …yet he was thriving in my care? I wondered throughout my ordeal with the family court…..’do these people have ‘distant’ relationships from those the bring into the world…and therefore see close relationships as unnatural?
Some parents have very ‘formal’ relationships with their children, it seems to me that this is seen as desirable.
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