There is growing recognition that child protection (CP) systems across the English-speaking world are failing to meet the goal of promoting a better and safer society for children and their families. An accumulating body of data attests to the poor outcomes of CP interventions, the existence of inequalities in these systems, and the fact that many parents have negative experiences within them. Despite the broad consensus regarding the ethical and practical importance of parent participation, studies have found that the voices, needs, and experiences of families, especially those in poverty, are often excluded and ignored by policy makers and practitioners. As a result, calls for the development of poverty-aware practices alongside an interest in innovative ways to meaningfully involve parents in order to promote improvements in CP system practice has increased worldwide.
Accordingly, this MSCA project – that was conducted in the Department of Social Work at Royal Holloway University of London (RHUL), under the supervision of Professor Anna Gupta – aspired to promote innovative, poverty-aware forms of parents' participation and family inclusion practices in child protection policy and practice. In order to do that, the project involved a comprehensive, qualitative research on advocacy and activism of parents with lived experiences of the child protection system in the UK. The project, that investigated various forms of parents’ advocacy and activism, had 4 main scientific objectives: 1) To map, describe, and conceptualize the development and application of parent advocacy in England. 2) To explore the experiences and perspectives of all stakeholders who participate in parent advocacy 3) To examine and theorize the relevance of the PAPCP framework to parent advocacy. 4) To empirically enrich and further develop the PAPCP’s understanding of the complex relationship between poverty and CAN. Also, in order for the project to foster the development of the individual researcher, the training objectives for the researcher were foster the development of the researcher.
