Repeat removals of children, Joanne Harris on The Strawberry Thief

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.1 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2019

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With the numbers of children being taken into care in England at a ten year high, we take a look at the women who face the repeat court-ordered removal of subsequent children. We hear the story of one woman who had already had her first two children removed under court orders - and decided to flee the country when she was 37 weeks pregnant with a third child. Jenni discusses why some women face the repeat court-ordered removal of their children and what support vulnerable mothers require to break the cycle. And the author of Chocolat, Joanne Harris, talks about her latest novel The Strawberry Thief which returns to the story of chocolatier Vianne Rocher and of her daughters, Anouk and Rosette.

Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Ruth Watts Interviewed guest: Sophie Humphreys, child protection expert and board member of Cafcass Interviewed guest: Claire Mason, senior research associate at the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research and social worker Interviewed guest: Paula Jackson-Key, from Doncaster Children’s Services Trust Interviewed guest: Joanne Harris, author of The Strawberry Thief

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.6	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
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0:36.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:41.0	Hello Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Women's Our Podcast for Thursday, the 4th of April.
0:49.0	Today we devote most of the programme to the news that there are more children living in
0:53.7	care in England today than there were 25 years ago, with increasing numbers of
0:59.1	very young children being removed from their parents because they're considered to be at risk of
1:04.0	neglect or abuse. Why has there been a doubling of the number of babies being
1:09.5	taken into care at birth in the past decade and what better support might there be for young and often vulnerable
1:16.9	mothers. We'll also be joined by the novelist Joanne Harris whose latest book The Strawberry Thief returns to the village of Lincadé Sultan first
1:27.0	encountered in Schokula.
1:30.8	Now the latest figure for the number of children in care in England who have been removed from their parents is 75,420.
1:40.0	That's a rise of 4% on the number recorded last year.
1:45.0	Every year a number of mothers are known to flee the UK to stop their babies being taken away.
1:51.0	They head to various countries including France. A woman we're calling
1:56.4	Zara was one of them. She was 22 at the time and 37 weeks pregnant. Social services had already removed her first two children.
2:06.8	Zara went online asking for support from others in a similar situation.
	...

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