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Message Evidence BaseIt is estimated that each year, 500 babies are born to parents with care-experience in Scotland (McTier et al., 2023). Parents with experience of care not only face the same challenges that aect all new parents, but are likely to face additional hurdles resulting from the care system itself. Family breakdown and frequent moves growing up can lead to a lack of adequate social and family support in adulthood, as well as diculty sustaining supportive relationships. The barriers put in place by the care system will unfortunately continue to have an impact on the social networks of care-experienced people long after they have moved on from care (Teer, 2021; Tzouvara et al., 2023). This is the main reason that The Village is needed: to facilitate access to other parents with whom they parents can form friendships and build their support network. Barriers for care-experienced parentsThe transition to parenthood is a major identity shift for any new parent, and this process may be even more stressful for those who are care-experienced. Those who have experience of care typically exhibit poorer mental health and lower self-esteem than their peers (Cummings & Shelton, 2024; Parsons et al., 2024; Sanders, 2023). Evidence suggests that young people with experience of care are also more likely to become parents early, have poor health outcomes, and attain a lower level of education, training, and employment, especially without proper support (Roberts et al., 2017). Care-experienced parents are further more prone to facing financial diculties and housing stability, both of which can negatively impact on their parenting experience. (Parsons et al., 2024). Isolation, low self-esteem, poor parenting role models, stigma, and negative biases held by services and professionals are all potential barriers for those with care-experience who are trying to succeed as parents (Care Journeys, 2022; Purtell et al., 2022; Roberts et al., 2019; Targosz et al., 2003). When it comes to accessing support, there may be barriers resulting from parents’ prior experiences with services and professionals. Care-experienced parents are more likely to view professionals as judgemental rather than supportive and may avoid going to professionals with questions and concerns for fear it will make them look like a ‘bad parent,’ or worse, result in their children being removed (Care Journeys, 2022). Care-experienced parents have reported that they feel professionals are constantly looking for evidence of child maltreatment rather than working to help them improve their skills (Roberts et al., 2017). While it is important to always prioritise the safety of the child, when it comes to parents with experience of the care system, there is evidence of what Purtell et al. (2022) refer to as ‘surveillance bias,’ in which services are more likely to make negative assumptions about a person’s ability to parent on the basis of their care-experience. A study in Wales found that although less than 1% of children in Wales are in care at any time, over 25% of mothers and 20% of fathers whose children have been

adopted were care-experienced themselves (Roberts et al., 2017). The researchers used a sample of parents whose children had been removed and placed for adoption and found that for 58% of care-experienced parents it was their first child that had been removed, compared to only 18% of their non-care-experienced counterparts. However, there were no significant dierences in crime involvement or substance misuse between parents who were and were no care-experienced. These findings suggests a hypervigilance of child protection services towards care-experienced parents, considering they are more likely to have their children removed sooner despite not exhibiting more risk behaviours than those who do not. Parents with care-experience are constantly expected to prove themselves to professionals, despite often not being given the necessary support or being shown how to be eective parents. Care-experienced parents typically have good intentions and the desire to become good parents for their children, with many reporting that having a child of their own is their opportunity to ‘break the cycle’ (Either, 2022). Parsons et al. (2024) examined the long-term outcomes of care-leavers who became parents and their children, using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study and 2000/02 Millennium Cohort Study, both of which included information on health, educational, and socioeconomic circumstances. The evidence shows us that while mothers who had experienced out-of-home care (OHC) had a lower socioeconomic status and less psychosocial resources available to them, there was no significant dierence between care-experienced mothers and controls regarding their ability to provide a safe and stable home for their children. No significant dierences were found between OHC and non-OHC mothers regarding the following measures of parenting suitability: using drugs or drinking alcohol frequently, living in an overcrowded or messy home, having a regular schedule for their child, attendance at antenatal classes, being unhappy about becoming pregnant, or having a baby with low birthweight. Interestingly, however, OHC mothers typically did not perceive themselves as good parents. This tells us that care-experienced parents overwhelmingly want to give their children a safe and nurturing home, but may lack confidence and resources, requiring extra support to be at their best. What care-experienced parents needWhen young people leave care, they are often referred on to several services that do not coordinate eectively with each other, creating barriers and increasing anxiety which may cause the young person to disengage altogether from formal services providing income, housing, education, and employment support (Purtell et al., 2022). This, combined with distrust of services stemming from experiences of the care system as a whole, means that what parents do not need is more professionals in their lives. Both research and care-experienced parents themselves tell us that what they need most is more informal social support. Having supportive social relationships is a crucial protective factor for parents and their children, helping to prevent negative outcomes and increase parental self-ecacy (Either, 2022). A study by Leady-Warren, McCarthy, and Corcoran (2009) found that informal social support had a positive, significant eect on self-ecacy in new mothers, which in turn was significantly correlated with lower levels of postnatal depressive symptoms. This correlation was not significant, however, for professional support, showing informal support to be more impactful. Mothers benefitted from four types of support - emotional, informational, appraisal (i.e. reassurance and encouragement), and instrumental (i.e. practical support with parenting responsibilities). For most mothers, partners, their own mother, and friends oered all four types of support. For care-experienced parents who may

have reduced family and friend networks, village team members and other parents fill these roles and provide the four types of support. It is also known that parents already rely on the internet for information and social support and may even be more likely to turn to the internet for parenting information and advice than those in their own families (Doty & Dworkin, 2014). Online communities provide parents with the benefit of immediate advice and reassurance, and parents can validate themselves and their experiences through sharing and storytelling with other parents going through similar experiences (Doty & Dworkin, 2014; Haslam, Tee, & Baker, 2017). One study found that parents consistently preferred informal information and other parents’ advice more than expert sources because they viewed lived experience from those in their support network as more valuable (Doty & Dworkin, 2014). In creating The Village, the aim was to facilitate this in a way that is specific and relevant to care-experienced parents.Care-experienced parents have also noted feeling that they do not have others in their support network who understand their unique parenting journey, as they sometimes have trouble connecting fully with those in typical parent and child groups, stating a need for support networks targeted towards care-experienced parents (Care Journeys, 2022). Peer support and friendships is especially important for those with experience of care, entering and into adulthood. Friendships, particularly ones with people who have shared experiences, are an essential source of social support and social capital. Everyone regardless of their background benefits from having friends to fulfil a variety of social support needs, but for care-experienced people who have had challenging relational histories and may face stigmatisation from those outside of the care-experienced community, meaningful friendships with others who understand their experiences can be invaluable. Friendships have been found to facilitate a variety of positive post-care outcomes, including increased social capital, educational attainment, employment, making meaning of experiences, and building resilience and trust (Guinchard, 2024). Therefore, carving out a space specifically for care-experienced parents to form friendships with each other can open up many opportunities through stronger social support. Working with Birth-ParentsAnother way in which we can “stop the cycle” of care is by supporting parents who have had their children removed. Parents who have had one child removed will likely have more removed in the future , due to a combination of the detriments of having a child removal on their record and a lack of support for parents after their child has been removed (Broadhurst & Mason, 2019). While work with birth parents is slowly gaining presence in the UK, unfortunately removal of a child from a parent’s care still often results in the cessation of the majority of their professional support. Most birth parents have experienced multiple forms of disadvantage in their own childhoods. A study by Broadhurst and Mason (2019) with mothers in the UK who had had their children removed found that approximately 60% of mothers had experienced abuse as children, 88% experienced domestic abuse as an adult, 83% had mental health diculties, and nearly half were care-experienced themselves. Further, they found that having a child removed causes these vulnerabilities to compound, as the grief associated with loss of children, social penalties such as stigma and loss of personal relationships, and loss of instrumental support (ex. loss of subsidised housing, employment, or benefits) creates further disadvantage. This makes birth parents’ own rehabilitation even more challenging, especially when no formal support is in place, and makes it less likely that they will be able to meet the high expectations necessary to get their children back into their care or keep any future children.

“Women’s framing of the longer-term consequences of child removal ... makes far more evident women’s fragile and restricted social statuses, which shape their experience of loss, in the context of acutely limited protective resources. Role loss is multiple for women, because child removal not only profoundly re-shapes mothering but also stigmatised identities re-cast women’s position and ability to participate in intimate partner relationships, wider family and informal networks” (Broadhurst & Mason, 2019).Reduced formal and informal social support is a risk factor for child removal, and having adequate social support is often noted by professionals as necessary to those wanting to have their children returned to their care (Kenny & Barrington, 2018). Having a child removed can catapult parents into an “acute psychosocial crisis” in the period immediately after, with parents often becoming extremely isolated, experiencing the eects of trauma and grief, becoming depressed, anxious, or even suicidal, and returning to coping behaviours such as using drugs and alcohol (Broadhurst & Mason, 2019; Kenny & Barrington, 2018). Mothers who have had children removed note that they lack opportunities to meet other birth parents and exchange experiences. Further, they are hesitant to get support from professionals with issues such as poor mental health or drug and alcohol use, as they are worried about something being noted on their records that can be used against them in the future (Broadhurst & Mason, 2019). Finally, supporting birth parents after removal of their children is important to ensuring that children can maintain a relationship with their parent. Contact with birth parents following removal is often in the best interest of the child, as this leads to greater stability for children, continuity of family and community attachments, and better developmental and behavioural outcomes (Healy, Venables, & Walsh, 2023). However, for contact to be beneficial to both the birth parent and child, the parent will often need additional emotional, social, and practical support to be able to manage this relationship. In a review of existing programmes to support birth parents’ relationships with children following removal, peer groups and casework were two of the main programme types identified (Healy, Venables, & Walsh, 2023). Through a combination of peer-based and one-to-one support, birth parents were empowered to recognise their strengths and develop their identities as parents. Across programmes reviewed, it was acknowledged that most birth parents had experienced trauma themselves, had mental health problems, or other types of disadvantage, and were supported appropriately with this. Parents in these programmes received emotional and practical support to navigate the child protection system and develop their parenting skills. Through an emphasis on peer support, facilitating friendships between birth parents, and knowledgeable but confidential direct support from team members, The Village encompasses all of these aspects of meaningful work with birth parents. Ultimately, the needs of birth parents and care-experienced parents are not too dissimilar. With both groups, The Village is rooted in the principles that research and lived experience tell us will make a dierence to parents: building social support networks, facilitating friendships between those with lived experience, oering informal yet knowledgeable support from team members, identifying and cultivating parents’ strengths, and not sharing parents’ stories or records. The evidence suggests that this approach will lead not only to better outcomes for care-experienced and birth parents, but to better childhoods for their children, and hopefully reduce the number of children who go into care.

ReferencesBroadhurst, K. & Mason, C. (2019). Child removal as the gateway to further adversity: Birth mother accounts of the immediate and enduring collateral consequences of child removal. Qualitative Social Work, 0(0), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/1473325019893412 Care Journeys. (2022). Care-experienced parents unite for change: Peer researchers’ project exploring the experience of becoming a parent. Barnardo’s. https://www.barnardos.org.uk/sites/default/files/uploads/Care%20Experienced%20Parenthood%20Report.pdfCummings, A., & Shelton, K. (2024). The prevalence of mental health disorders amongst care-experienced young people in the UK: A systematic review. Children and Youth Services Review, 156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.107367 Doty, J. & Dworkin, J. (2014). Online social support for parents: A critical review. Marriage and Family Review, 50, 174-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2013.834027 Either, K. (2022). Relationships to self, baby, others, and system: A narrative analysis of the transition to parenthood for young mothers in foster care. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 39, 711-34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-022-00846-4 Guinchard, S. (2024). The importance of friendships for young people transitioning from care: A scoping review of the literature. The Why Not Trust. https://whynottrust.org/media/2obmxswu/importance_of_friendships_transitioning_from_care_scoping_review.pdfHaslam, D. M., Tee, A., Baker, S. (2017). The use of social media as a mechanism of social support in parents. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 2026-37. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0716-6 Healy, K., Venables, J., Walsh, T. (2023). Supporting birth parents' relationships with children following removal: A scoping review. Children and Youth Services Review, 149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.106961Kenny, K. S. & Barrington, C. (2018). "People just don't look at you the same way": Public stigma, private suering and unmet social support needs among mothers who use drugs in the aftermath of child removal. Children and Youth Services Review, 86, 209-216. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.01.030Leahy-Warren, P., McCarthy, G., Corcoran, P. (2009). First-time mothers: Social support, maternal parental self-ecacy, and postnatal depression. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 21, 388-97. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.13652702.2011.03701.xMcTier, A., Anderson, C. A., Young, E. (2023). Births to care-experienced teenagers and women aged 14-24 in Scotland: An estimation. Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection (CELCIS). https://www.celcis.org/application/files/2116/7604/8031/Care_Experienced_Teenagers_and_Mothers_V1_Feb_2023.pdf.pdfParsons, S., Schoon, I., Fitzsimons, E. (2024). Long-term outcomes for care-leavers who became parents and experiences of their children: Evidence on the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage in two British cohort studies (pp. 1-69) [Research Report]. Nueld Foundation. Centre for Longitudinal Studies. https://www.nueldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Children-of-care-leavers-research-report.pdf

Sanders, R. (2020). Care-experienced children and young people’s mental health. Iriss. https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/outlines/care-experienced-children-and-young-peoples-mental-healthRoberts, L., Meakings, S., Smith, A., Forrester, D., Shelton, K. (2017). Care leavers and their children placed for adoption. Children and Youth Services Review, 79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.06.030 Roberts, L., Maxwell., N., & Elliot, M. (2019). When young people in and leaving state care become parents: What happens and why? Children and Youth Services Review, 104. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104387Teer, P. (2021). The role of informal networks in the lives of young people transitioning from care: A review of the literature. Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care, 20, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00084171 Tzouvara, V., Kupdere, P., Wilson, K., Matthews, L., Simpson, A., Foye, U. (2023). Adverse childhood experiences, mental health, and social functioning: A scoping review of the literature. Child Abuse & Neglect, 139, 1-57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106092