Then there is me: blurring of the boundaries when care-experienced women become mothers

Care experienced mothers are more likely to experience state intervention in the care of their children than their non-care-experienced peers. In parallel, there is a public policy challenge of how to interrupt the cycle of intergenerational state intervention and for children to remain in the care of their parents. It is recognised that care experienced young women need more support as they transition to become mothers, but what should that support look like? It is clear from research that support needs to reduce the impact of structural disadvantage. What is more elusive is how their emotional needs are understood and supported, at a time when it is recognised that maternal mental health is crucial for the long-term health and wellbeing for mothers and their children. This group of young women become mothers in the shadow of public care and scrutiny. This study and prior research show that professionals are aware of young women’s emotional struggles but find themselves challenged by what they experience as the tension between supporting the mother and safeguarding her baby. This is a psychosocial social work research study which uses an interview method informed by the Free Association Narrative Interview Method (FANIM), developed by Hollway and Jefferson (2013) to explore the experiences of four young women and four professionals. Through the theoretical concepts of Raphael-Leff (1996) and Ettinger (1997), the conscious and unconscious psychological experiences of young women who are mothers are theorised. This demonstrates the depth of their emotional experience and how it is connected to their parental past, their present and their future. It shows how, for them, they can feel like “objects” and different to other mothers with the focus being on their baby. The study considers how professionals experience a tension in their role and how this may originate in their and their organisations’ defences against anxiety in the task. This study argues that more attention should be given to understanding and supporting young women emotionally as they become mothers and providing a practice environment where reflection is embedded enabling professionals to manage the task of thinking about the young woman and her baby both separately and together.