Conservative Wiltshire Council Invests to help prevent children being taken in to care

Conservative Wiltshire Council has launched a £500,000 initiative to help prevent children going into care in the county which will start next year and is to be jointly funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and Wiltshire Council.

The council and the charity Pause are working with women who have experienced, or are at risk of, repeated pregnancies resulting in children needing to be removed from their care. The aim is to prevent the damaging consequences of children being taken into care each year.

Conservative Councillor Laura Mayes, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “Children born into this cycle can be adversely affected for the rest of their lives. We will work with Pause to do everything we can to break this cycle for the good of the women and their children. I really think this funding will make a big difference.”

In Wiltshire from July 2013 to July 2015 thirty-three woman were identified as having repeat pregnancies which resulted in children being removed from them. Wiltshire will be working with Pause on a project where key workers develop therapeutic relationships with these women to help them deal with drug and alcohol addictions, domestic violence, and mental health issues, and take time to stabilise their lives. The project, which is set to start in April 2017, will work with key partner agencies across Wiltshire including health and voluntary services. The Department for Education awarded Pause £6.8 million nationally to increase the work of the charity. -ENDS- Notes: The Pause programme gives women the chance to pause and take control of their lives, breaking a destructive cycle that causes both them and their children deep trauma, as well as costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds. Its primary focus is to prevent damage to those children. The number of applications at family courts for a child to be taken into care reached almost 13,000 last year. The proportion of women returning to court, having already had one child removed, range from 15.5%, to as much as 29% on estimation. Pause focuses on this problem through the lens of vulnerable women at risk of becoming pregnant and having children removed from their care. It works alongside these women to provide a therapeutic relationship which helps them to deal with drug and alcohol addictions, domestic violence, and mental health issues. The Pause programme helps to break some of these trans-generational cycles, whilst giving them a sense of self-worth. As part of the programme, women agree to use a long acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) which enables them to take a break from the destructive cycles.

For political comment: Conservatives: Laura Mayes - laura.mayes@wiltshire.gov.uk