"I was out of my depth": two women's experience of child removal

We recently published ‘We Need Support’, a new briefing commissioned by Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which centres the voices of women in the region with lived experience of child removal.

Here, we share Part II of an interview with Lilly Lewis-James, Agenda Alliance trustee and Co-Chair of the project, and Candice*, sharing their perspectives as experts by experience involved in the briefing.

AA: One of the briefing’s recommendations is for Greater Manchester to continue to involve women with lived experience in the systems-change work on this issue. What difference do you think this could make to the lives of women experiencing or at risk of child removal in the area?

L: Once your child is removed, you go into a grieving process, and unless you’ve been through that, it’s so hard to advise on this subject.

C: I agree. I think having women with lived experience involved would help the process, and help the person who is going through that at that time. We’d be able to advise them and know what was going on.

AA: Women have told us how in the dark they feel when in contact with the police, social workers, navigating the family court system, not feeling that they’re having things explained to them or information is being gatekept about their children. One of the recommendations is that there will be dedicated support advocates for women navigating proceedings across GM – how do you feel that would have changed the process for you?

Both: Massively.

L: I think upon removal or where it’s getting very close, that woman should be signposted to an advocate who can help them navigate the process and to give them the options. C and I probably felt the same: once the child was removed, your substance misuse got worse, but if someone had sat down with me and gone, ‘I’m going to do this with you, you need to stop drinking, or you need to do this, or you need to stop this relationship, or we need to get you moved house’, if someone had supported me through that, it might have been a much better outcome for me.

AA: Were you in touch with any support services at all at the time of your children being removed?

L: None whatsoever. I couldn’t go back to the home that they’d removed me from, I didn’t have any money, I stayed out that night, and then on the second night, the police paid for me to stay in a Travelodge. I didn’t have any contact lenses, I couldn’t even see. The police took me and got me some, and then I was in the police station for three days whilst they tried to find me a refuge space. I didn’t even know things like substance misuse places where you went and got help - I didn’t know they existed. I’d never been in a refuge, so that was actually quite scary as well. It was just... I didn’t know where I was, I was out of my depth.

C: It’s daunting, very daunting.

L: They don’t tell you where your children are so I had no idea where my children were living. I knew that my children had also been separated, my two younger ones together, and my 14 year old had been taken miles out of area. It was the most horrific thing I have ever been through in my life. It was almost like it would have been better to stay in that really violent relationship and be protected from the system.

C: Yeah. Your heart wouldn’t have gone through what it went through. It was like Lilly said – I'd seen bits of what you hadn’t experienced, so for you it must have been absolutely mind-blowing.

AA: Another factor in the briefing is how much housing instability impacts women. One of the recommendations is therefore that women can remain on priority housing lists after experiencing child removal. What do you think the impact of that would be?

C: It would be massive, that. As I was going through court proceedings, I got put in a one-bedroom flat, I didn't have space for my kids, so that stops you from getting your kids back, and they won’t rehouse you into a bigger house unless you get your kids back, but you’re not going to get your kids back unless you get a bigger house. So you’re stuck in another rut. That’s a massive thing.

L: For me, it just felt like game over from the day they were taken and then I was put in the refuge for six months. My parents ended up getting me a private let, but within three months of being in that, the six months were up and the kids were gone. They give you a six month window.

C: It’s too late.

AA: Is there anything else you’d like people to learn or take away from this work. Is there anything you’d like to say to people in power in Greater Manchester or even the new government?

L: Social care staff need to go through trauma-informed training, they need to learn how to deal with a woman in crisis, and then there needs to be far more support for children going through it. Not enough is done to give them that emotional support.

C: I totally agree. I was ringing them up about my child, saying he needs to see someone, and they say ‘Oh no, he’ll be alright, he just has had a lot of trauma.’ That’s when it gets reflected back on you again. You’re trying to help your child, because you’ve obviously helped yourself, and now, 5, 10 years down the line, there’s still nothing there for them.

L: At one point my daughter was struggling, and the social worker said, ‘She’s been rejected enough in her life’. I had to say, ‘I didn’t reject her, you took her off me.’ And you don’t get any... not to say we deserve credit, but they never, ever, say you’re doing well.

S: Never. They only say, ‘Well, you put them through this.’ or ‘It’s your fault that they’re going through this.’

AA: If you could say anything to other women going through what you went through, what would it be?

Both: Get in touch. Come to us.

L: Let us help you.

C: We can point you in the right direction.

L: There is hope, even though the window isn’t big.

C: It’s not big but it’s doable. We’re people who’ve been through it.

L: And help them get positive outcomes. There are circumstances where a child should be removed and we all agree with that. But what we’re saying is it’s then how we are treated after that removal. We’re not saying it was the wrong decision, but we should be in that child’s life as much as possible and we should be supported to be the best we can.

C: And they should be encouraging it, social services, and not discouraging it. I’d love for somebody to come to me and say, can you help me, because I’d be 100% by their side. Like you said it’s about positive outcomes.