Compassion During Removal: Supporting Parents with Direct Experience of Child Removal
Child removal is often discussed through the language of welfare and risk. Those concepts are essential in child protection, however; they can obscure the reality for parents. Removal is a profound experience for both children and their parents. The literature shows that parents who experience the removal of their children during care proceedings often experience disenfranchised grief, stigma, trauma, identity loss, social isolation, and material disadvantage. Compassion during removal and throughout the process of reunification should not minimise any harm or dilute the court’s welfare considerations, however; it should recognise that parents remain people whose pain, dignity and capacity for change matter to their family, professionals involved, and the court.
The impact of court-ordered child removal on birth parents remains under-researched: the majority of the literature in this area focuses on the child’s care experience. The available research frames removal as producing collateral consequences. In care proceedings, parents’ histories are exposed and recorded for the benefit of the court. The parents experience not only grief, but an enduring legal and social mark that can affect parents physical and mental health and ongoing social experiences (Broadhurst and Mason, 2017).
The research characterises removal as a form of traumatic loss. Suomi, Bolton and Pasalich’s review found high levels of PTSD symptoms among parents involved in child protection matters (Suomi, Bolton and Pasalich, 2023). The review notes that child removal itself has been described as one of the most traumatic experiences a person can endure, comparable in some accounts to the death of a child. Memarnia et al. (2015) provide a powerful account of birth mothers’ experiences after children were taken into care or adopted. Poignant phrases from interviews such as “no one in my corner”, and “the children are gone but still here” portray how removal reshapes a mother’s sense of self. Mothers described feeling unheard during the process and left unsupported afterwards. Some coped by numbing, minimising, or disconnecting from emotion as the guilt and despair were too overwhelming. The phrase “the children are gone but still here” captures the paradox of non-death loss. Their child is absent; the parent is no longer able to parent in ordinary ways (Memarnia et al., 2015). This connects with the concepts of ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief (Boss, 2006). Parents whose children enter the care system experience grief that is socially unrecognised. This is an experience of loss that is either outright denied or is unrecognised by the public as there is a social belief that the parent does not deserve to feel this way. Their grief becomes public; it is easily disregarded by those around them.
The research places removal within the context of wider inequality. Academics have found a strong social gradient in child welfare intervention across the four UK nations: children’s chances of child protection intervention were closely related to family socio-economic circumstances, measured by regional deprivation and ethnicity (Bywaters et al., 2020). Parents in care proceedings do not exist in a vacuum. Compassion therefore requires structural and sociolegal awareness for practitioners. It is not enough to say that parents “failed” without asking what support was absent before, during, and after proceedings.
Wissö, Melke and Josephson (2024) add the concept of moral injury. Parents in their study experienced injury arising from professionals, services, adversarial systems, systemic bias, their own actions, children’s withdrawal and exclusion from ongoing care. Moral injury is useful; it describes a wound to a person’s moral identity and sense of worth. Parents may experience themselves as condemned, shamed or erased. The literature supports a clear conclusion. The removal of children is absolutely necessary in some cases, however; the process can inflict additional avoidable harm. Parents need honest communication, trauma-informed support, and opportunities to remain meaningfully connected to their children where it is safe to do so.
Practitioners Support for Parents Throughout Removal
Barristers have a distinct role in a compassionate approach to parents experiencing removal. Practitioners become involved at the point of removal and play a pivotal role in the immediate court process. Care proceedings are frightening and technical; parents may not understand threshold, interim removal, assessments, contact, evidence, or timescales. A barrister who takes a time to explain what is happening can reduce panic and help the parent participate more effectively.
Barristers must preserve dignity in advocacy. This means challenging poor evidence firmly with parents; however, they must avoid unnecessary humiliation of the parties. Cross-examination must be rigorous but not demeaning. Parents who feel degraded are less likely to engage, process advice, or trust professionals having a serious knock-on effect to reunification.
Family practitioners can ensure the parent’s grief and trauma are not mistaken for indifference or hostility. A parent who appears angry, avoidant, flat, or chaotic may be ashamed or overwhelmed. Where appropriate, advocates can invite the court to consider trauma-informed adjustments to proceedings by providing regular breaks for parties and careful planning around giving evidence.
Practitioners must press for practical support where they identify this is needed. That may include asking what therapeutic, domestic abuse, substance misuse, housing, benefits or parenting support is actually available; whether contact arrangements are realistic; whether the parent has transport; and what the support post-removal looks like. The focus should not simply be on what order the court will make.
Finally, practitioners can help parents retain a future-facing identity. Even where the outcome is devastating in the immediate sense, parents will seek advice from legal professionals. A parent should leave court understanding the decision without not feeling that their humanity has been extinguished.
