Equip practitioners to engage families effectively
Ensure your practitioners have the understanding and skills to engage families. This section highlights the importance of adopting a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive approach when working with parents.
Overview
Key message five: Ensure practitioners have the skills and understanding to engage with families
A common message from practitioners interviewed as part of the born into care research was non-engagement and frustrate missions and difficulties they felt in trying to engage families at an early point in pregnancy. This is a message we've also heard in the recurrent care research. It's important because non-engagement was found to be the most commonly cited professional concern. Obviously appearing alongside others. But when we think about non-engagement, we need to think about it through the lens of trauma. As I've already alluded to, the parents who took part in this research and our prior recurrent research had faced multiple disadvantage and adversity in their own lives. Many of them had been children in the looked after system themselves and had a really difficult relationship with the state.
Perhaps then it isn't surprising that they didn't want to engage with social workers or what was seen as deliberate Non-engagement was often a defense strategy, a fear driven by their early experiences.
What the bone into care research and the change project has come to conclude is that actually what we need is a really skilled workforce that understands trauma and understands what it means to be trauma informed and trauma responsive by developing our skills and understanding the defensive strategies of many parents who are facing separation of that baby close to birth.
Then perhaps we can approach that relationship in a different way. It also links very closely to the earlier key message about getting in early, because to build that trust, build that relationship and create safety takes time. Where professionals are concerned about non-engagement. It may lead to risk averse and defensive practice and really up the stakes in terms of state intervention and make it more likely that the plan could be for separation.
For more resources that might help practitioners and managers to think about how to re-conceptualise non-engagement, have a look at some of the links below and hear practitioners who are already working in this area and also other research in practice resources that refer directly to trauma informed practice.
A growing body of research highlights the importance of adopting a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive approach when working with parents involved with children's social care (Broadhurst et al., 2017; Marsh, 2016; Philip et al., 2021).
Many parents at risk of separation from their babies close to birth have faced multiple adversities extending back to their own childhoods and many have been in the care of the local authority themselves as children (Boddy et al., 2020; Broadhurst et al., 2017: Philip et al., 2021).
The Born into Care research emphasises why it is crucial for practitioners across services to have the knowledge and skills that:
- Reflect an understanding of trauma.
- Recognise the multiple adversities experienced by many parents.
- Take into account how this may impact on their relationship with the state (Mason et al., 2022).
Remaining alert to parents’ learning needs and ensuring parents’ understanding throughout their involvement with pre-birth services is absolutely core to this work. We encourage you to explore research from Katy Burch and colleagues as well as from Beth Tarlton and Nadine Tilbury to deepen your understanding of the key issues and learn about good practice for supporting parents with learning disabilities. Further resources can also be found in the further reading section below.
Want to know more?
The audio clip below hears directly from two mothers with lived experience of the pre-birth child protection system. They explain why this key message is so important to them.
Practice spotlight
The following audio clips feature conversations with practitioners in services that have developed a particular focus on engagement with families through co-production and/or providing trauma-responsive support to the parents they work with.
Clip one: Claire Mason speaks to three people from Blackpool Council who were involved in co-production work: Bertie Goffe, Children’s Services Workforce Development Lead, Lisa Harrison, Lived Experience Sessional Worker, and Kayla Goodridge, Co-production Delivery Lead. This co-production work led to the development of a map to support better understandings of the pre-birth pathways to social care.
Clip two: Claire Mason speaks to Pauline Wigglesworth, Service Manager at Blackpool Council about how co-production is informing pre-birth work in Blackpool.
Clip three: Claire Mason speaks to Laura Bibey, Baby & Me Team Manager at Newport City Council, about the importance of trauma-informed approaches to pre-birth work.
Clip four: Features a conversation between Claire Mason and Jo Greenway, Therapeutic Family Time and Intervention Service Manager at DAISY, Walsall Council, about trauma-responsive practice in pre-birth work.
Clip five: Claire Mason speaks to Pip Rees, Head of Service for Children and Families in Cheshire West and Chester Council, about trauma-informed approaches.
Planning for your area
Below are some suggestions to help you consider and improve your own service’s approach to engaging with families.
Carry out a file audit
Identify how often parental non-engagement is cited as a key concern by professionals when there is escalation to proceedings at birth.
Organise team meetings or skills days
Provide practitioners with the opportunity to share their experiences of engaging with families, discussing what has worked and the challenges they have faced. Use the resources above to facilitate a skills session with frontline practitioners, focusing on their experiences and approaches to engagement.
Utilise supervision discussions and formulation
During supervision, explore what factors might make it difficult for parents to engage with practitioners and how a practitioner might respond to this.
Adopt a co-production approach
Set up a parent panel in your area and collaborate with parents who have lived experience. Work together to find ways to improve practitioner understanding and deliver training and awareness-raising sessions for staff.
Additional resources
Explore additional resources to further engage with the key message.
- The Birth Charter for women with involvement from Children’s Social Care from Birth Companions also advocates for trauma-informed and trauma-responsive support for women in the pre-birth period (see pages 7-8).
- A Research in Practice briefing summarises findings from interviews with trauma-experienced mothers about safeguarding involvement in relation to their children. It provides guidance about how practitioners can practice in a trauma-informed way to build connection, safety and trust with trauma-experienced parents.
- Explore a series of video learning resources to support children’s social care practitioners working with parents who have experienced complex and/or sustained trauma.
- In this film Dr Danny Taggart, Clinical Psychologist, focuses on attachment-informed practice with adults who have experienced trauma in their early lives.
Burch, K., Simpson, A., Taylor, V., Bala, A., & Morgado De Queiroz, S. (2024). Babies in care proceedings: What do we know about parents with learning disabilities or difficulties? Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. https://www.nuffieldfjo.org.uk/resource/babies-in-care-proceedings-what-do-we-know-about-parents-with-learning-disabilities-or-difficulties
Ryan, M. (2025). What are the experiences of parents with learning disabilities or difficulties in care proceedings? Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. https://www.nuffieldfjo.org.uk/resource/what-are-the-experiences-of-parents-with-learning-disabilities-or-difficulties-in-care-proceedings
Spencer, M., Tarleton, B., Collings, S., MacIntyre, G., & Turney, D. (2024). If we know what works, why aren't we doing it? British Journal of Social Work, 54(6), 2808-2825. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae080
Tilbury, N., & Tarlton, B. (2023). Substituted parenting: What does this mean for parents with learning disabilities in the family court context? University of Bristol and Nuffield Foundation. https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/sps/documents/wtpn/SP%20Report.pdf
Turney, D., Tarleton, B., & Tilbury, N. (2018). Supporting parents who have learning disabilities: Strategic Briefing. Research in Practice. https://www.researchinpractice.org.uk/all/publications/2018/april/supporting-parents-who-have-learning-disabilities-strategic-briefing-2018/
- Boddy, J., Bowyer, S., Godar, R., Hale, C., Kearney, J., Preston, O., Wheeler, B., & Wilkinson, J. (2020). Evaluation of Pause: Evaluation report. Department of Education.
- Broadhurst, K., Mason, C., Bedston, S., Alrouh, B., Morriss, L., McQuarrie, T., Palmer, M., Shaw, M., Harwin, J., & Kershaw, S. (2017). Vulnerable birth mothers and recurrent care proceedings. Lancaster University.
- Philip, G., Bedston, S., Youansamouth, L., Clifton, J., Broadhurst, K., Brandon, M., & Hu, Y. (2021).'Up Against It': Understanding Fathers’ Repeat Appearance in Local Authority Care Proceedings. Nuffield Foundation.
- Marsh, W. (2016) Babies removed at birth: narratives of mothers’ and midwives’. Doctoral thesis. University of Surrey.
- Mason, C., Broadhurst, K., Ward, H., Barnett, A., & Holmes, L. (2022). Born into Care: Developing best practice guidelines for when the state intervenes at birth. Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.