Mother and Child Project

Between 2016 and 2019, in partnership with the Astraea Project, with funding from The Baring Foundation, the Mother and Child project has been supporting pregnant women and Mothers who are looked after or leaving care.

Those who have been in the care system are 66 times more likely than non care-experienced peers to have their children taken into care. We believe with the right support at the right time care-experienced mothers can parent their own children.

We have adopted a rights-based approach to try to ensure pregnant women and mothers who are or have been in the care system receive appropriate support to give them the chance to parent their own children.

MAC project overview

This project has:

increased advocates’ knowledge of the legal rights of care-experienced mothers;

built a network of Community Care and Public Law lawyers to represent care-experienced mothers to pursue their rights; and

built an alliance of experts to help us understand what the ‘right support’ might look like.

The MAC Project was evaluated by Social Justice Solutions.

Evaluation - Executive Summary

Evaluation - Final report

Download our free resources to help your work with care leaving mothers and their children

MAC Project Legal Framework Training	Facts and Statistics
Top 10 tips - Consultations	Top 10 tips - Pathways planning
Top 10 tips - Pre-birth assessments	Advocate case study
Midlands Directory of Services

Watch our legal literacy tutorials by Emma Austin, Solicitor on the legal framework for the support and protection of vulnerable children and care leavers.

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