This book brings critical, scholarly attention to the systematic positioning and subjective experiences of mothers involved in child protection processes in ?risk?-based child protection systems (Parton, Thorpe and Wattam; Connolley; Swift and Callahan). While mothers are typically the primary focus of child protection prevention and investigations (Azzopardi et al.; Fallon et al.; Swift and Callahan), their gendered experiences, challenges and triumphs are seldom given space in the academic literature, practice and/or public spaces to be seen or heard. Chapters in this volume build on existing literature to illustrate the structural positioning and/or lived experiences of mothers who come into contact with child protection for a variety of reasons: substance (ab)use, positive HIV status, child injury, fetal alcohol syndrome, colonial assessment methodologies, young age, incarceration, childbirth, and intimate partner violence. This book offers three unique contributions to existing literature on mothering in child protection. First, it creates space for mothers involved in child protection to have their voices heard. Second, it acknowledges the centrality of mothers? subjective experience in keeping children safe. Finally, it challenges dominant, often dehumanizing narratives of mothers in involved in child protection through providing a more nuanced understanding of their lives. Ultimately this anthology calls for a fundamental rethinking of how mothers involved in child protection proceedings are conceptualized in child protection research, policy and practice. It is recommended that mothers voices must be central to humanely reforming child protection systems.
Endorsements
Table of Contents
Author Biography
Introduction
Brooke Richardson
Chapter 1
At the intersection of care and justice in child protection: A reflective account
Brooke Richardson
Chapter 2
Grounds for protection? Examining the intersection of HIV infection, ?risk? and motherhood
Allyson Ion
Chapter 3
Helping or hurting? Exploring the ?help/harm paradox? experienced by mothers at the intersection of the child protection and healthcare systems in Ontario
Meredith Berrouard, Brooke Richardson
Chapter 4
Is harm reduction safe? Exploring the tensions between shelter staff, mothers and children working or living in shelters
Angela Hovey, Lori Chambers, Susan Scott
Chapter 5
When theoretical frameworks aren?t ?good enough?: Deconstructing maternal discourses in child protection responses to mothers experiencing intimate partner violence
Angelique Jenney
Chapter 6
Challenging systemic bias towards Indigenous mothers arising from colonial and dominant society assessment methodology through a lens of humility
Peter Choate, Gabrielle Lindstrom
Chapter 7
A window on the system: A feminist analysis of the construction of teenage mothers in Serious Case Reviews in the UK
Sarah Bekaert, Brooke Richardson
Chapter 8
Mothering Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD): Child protection and contested spaces
Dorothy Badry, Kelly Coons-Harding, Robyn Williams, Bernadette Iahtail, Peter Choate & Erin Leveque
Chapter 9
Systemic un-mothering: Mothers, their children, and families at the intersection of child welfare and the carceral system
Lauren Hawthorne, Brooke Richardson