Mothering Justice
Working with Mothers in
Criminal and Social Justice Settings
Edited by Lucy Baldwin
With a Foreword by Vicky Pryce
Copyright and publication details
Mothering Justice
Working with Mothers in Criminal and Social Justice Settings
Edited by Lucy Baldwin
ISBN 978-1-909976-23-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-910979-02-0 (Epub ebook)
ISBN 978-1-910979-03-7 (Adobe ebook)
Copyright 2015 This work is the copyright of Lucy Baldwin. All intellectual property and associated rights are hereby asserted and reserved by her in full compliance with UK, European and international law. No part of this book may be copied, reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, or in any language, including in hard copy or via the internet, without the prior written permission of the publishers to whom all such rights have been assigned worldwide. The Foreword is the copyright of Vicky Pryce and individual chapters of those there named and subject to the same terms.
Cover design 2015 Waterside Press: Incorporating parts of a word cloud by Fred Thonger.
Main UK distributor Gardners Books, 1 Whittle Drive, Eastbourne, East Sussex, BN23 6QH. Tel: +44 (0)1323 521777; ; www.gardners.com
North American distribution Ingram Book Company, One Ingram Blvd, La Vergne, TN 37086, USA. Tel: (+1) 615 793 5000;
Cataloguing-In-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.
Printed by CPI Group, Chippenham, UK.
e-bookMothering Justice is available as an ebook and also to subscribers of Myilibrary, Dawsonera, ebrary, and Ebscohost.
Published 2015 by
Waterside Press
Sherfield Gables
Sherfield-on-Loddon
Hook, Hampshire
United Kingdom RG27 0JG
Telephone +44(0)1256 882250
E-mail
Online catalogue WatersidePress.co.uk
Contents
Ripples
I watch the birds soaring in the sky
like ever decreasing circles in a river
The higher they fly the smaller they get
until they disappear
Will this be me? Will I disappear?
The longer I am here the smaller I feel
like ever decreasing circles in a river.
The memories of my childrens faces,
love in their eyes, their touch their smell.
The longer I am here will my memories fade
like ever decreasing circles in a river?
My heart, it aches the pain hurting me,
stopping me sleeping, breathing, living
It does not get smaller the longer I am here
it is nothing like ever decreasing circles in a river
It will not disappear.
Acknowledgements
It is important to thank the authors and contributors, even those who didnt in the end participate as much as was initially hoped nevertheless you were all part of the journey and the process and are therefore woven into this book too. Special thanks to Susie Atherton, Leila-Zoe Mezoughi and Sinead OMalley.
All of the contributors are grateful to the women they have worked with who have touched their lives and made this book possible and they thank those women for the insight, understanding and positive professional development gained from that experience. The voice of all of those women is present throughout the book. To them we would like to say, You are all now hopefully part of something that will contribute positively to the wonderful ongoing work with mothers in and around criminal and social justice. Thank you: we hope you who made this book possible are heard in every sense possible.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, my beloved children and partner who have been endlessly patient with my preoccupation. You are all my world. So thanks to Lisa, Christopher and Annie, Matthew and Keely, Meghan and Fred, Jak and my nearly here, loved already, grandson Wilfred Barnaby Francis (We are all beyond excited to meet you!).
All my love
Mum X
P.S. Very special thanks to Bryan Gibson at Waterside for giving us a voice, for your patience for your humour, the checked shirt and the singing. Keep on chopping!
Lucy
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my lost children and grandchildren and those yet to come and to mothers and children the world over, particularly those who are vulnerable, struggling or surviving against the odds.
I would especially like to dedicate it to all of the women and mothers I have worked with professionally over the last 27 years and two in particular Maxine and Caroline, wherever you are now, you both along with everything you taught me as I supported you have stayed with me.
About the Authors
Author/Editor: Lucy Baldwin BA (Hons), MA, Dip SW, Cert CTS, FHEA
Lucy is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at De Montfort University. She joined Academia in 2004 after a long career in Social and Criminal Justice. She has practice experience in a variety of fields across Social Services, the Probation Service and Prisons and has worked across a wide range of resources with service user, victim and offender-focussed perspectives. She is undertaking research in the sentencing of mothers and has articles forthcoming relating to proposals for change and managing emotions and trauma in prison as mothers. Her doctoral research is concerned with mothers, custody and emotions. In whatever setting she has been employed she has have been touched by the heart and soul of women, especially the mothers with whom she has worked and the challenges they face. Lucy is a mother of three, stepmother of one three boys aged 23 to 33 and a daughter aged 21. She also has a grandbaby due around the time this book will be published very exciting!
Lisa Hackett BA (Hons), MA, Dip SW, AMHP
Lisa is a qualified Social Worker and Approved Mental Health Practitioner (AMHP) and Head of Division of Criminology at De Montfort University. She has 20 years experience in the field working in residential settings, child protection, fostering, womens aid and adult mental health. She teaches around mental health and diversity, young people and crime and mental health and policing. Lisa has a keen interest in how practitioners interact and work with vulnerable children and adults, and how they use their understanding of self to formulate and develop knowledge, insight and perspective. She plans to undertake research around engaging positively with personality disorders from both a service user and practitioner perspective in order to support the process of desistance. Lisa lives in a busy household with her partner and three sons.
Cassandra Barnes BA (Hons), MA, SW
Cassandra is a qualified Social Worker working as a Senior Social Worker in a duty and assessment team for Childrens Services. She is passionate about child protection and felt driven to working in frontline child protection in an attempt to support the change of the stories of children and young people who experience abuse, neglect and deprivation. Her work has a particular focus on supporting children via work with families to break cycles of abuse. Cassandra aims to inform her practice by developing positive working relationships with families, crucially mothers, to assist and support them to effectively and safely parent their children.
