Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 

About: Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Family law & Legislation. It has an ISSN identifier of 0964-9069. Over the lifetime, 1004 publications have been published receiving 8243 citations. The journal is also known as: Journal of social welfare and family law.

What is wrong with children's well-being in the UK? Questions of meaning and measurement

Abstract: This paper discusses problems with existing attempts to measure children's well-being using secondary datasets, taking as an example the UNICEF Innocenti report entitled Child poverty in perspective: an overview of child well-being in rich countries (UNICEF 2007). The report placed the UK's children at the bottom of the league table of rich nations on their average score across six dimensions, including emotional well-being and ‘happiness’. The report's authors point to a number of problems with the available data and their uses of them. We seek to engage in a critical debate about the value of the report. We argue that it exemplifies a deficit model approach to the study of children's lives, as it appears to seek to demonstrate negative aspects of children's experiences. Its findings are frequently cited as scientific ‘fact’ in press reports about children and young people. In this paper, we discuss some problems with definitions of ‘well-being’, how well-being is measured, and how children's (human) rig...

Stereotypes, parents with intellectual disability and child protection

Abstract: As more people with intellectual disability have children, serious concerns are being raised about the unusually high rate at which their children are removed. This review describes how parents with intellectual disability fare in child protection and court processes and offers both an empirical and a legal critique of frequently encountered presumptions about their parenting capacity.

Neither justice nor protection: women's experiences of post‐separation violence

Abstract: © 2003 Taylor & Francis. Publisher PDF version is restricted access in accordance with the Taylor & Francis policy.

Domestic violence and child contact arrangements in England and Denmark

Abstract: Report examining issues around child contact in circumstances of domestic violence, in the context of the Children Act 1989. Compares the situation in England with that in Denmark. Documents a range of problems, including the mismatch between the actual experiences of women and children living with domestic violence, and the awareness and understanding of domestic violence by many of the professionals interviewed for the study.

Maternal outcasts: raising the profile of women who are vulnerable to successive, compulsory removals of their children – a plea for preventative action

Abstract: This paper concerns policy and practice responses to birth mothers who experience successive, permanent removal of their children to state care and/or adoption. The central argument of this paper is that, to date, the rehabilitative needs of this population of birth mothers have fallen outside the remit of statutory agencies. Moreover, the extant literature offers little by way of definitive findings in respect of the size of this population or rehabilitative options. Indeed, a marked absence of discussion within mainstream policy circles renders this population hidden, only hinted at in profiling studies that note the sequential removal of siblings through public law care proceedings. Conceptualising this population of women as ‘maternal outcasts’ who bear the stigma of spoiled motherhood, we consider a range of factors that impact on this population's continued exclusion. Falling so far outside normative expectations of motherhood and presenting with multiple problems of daily living, there is no doubt ...