| Summary: | This study analyses women's experiences with the child welfare system following
episodes of domestic violence. Narratives have been gathered through interviews with
three voluntary participants. Two of the women who participated are Aboriginal and the
third is an immigrant woman from a South American country. The women described
how they were treated by social workers, how their involvement with the child protection
system motivated them toward change, and what they experienced while accessing
recommended support services. The three mothers provided details of the contact that
they had with child welfare services in their interviews. There were three main themes
that characterized the mother's stories. These themes were Benefit of the Doubt,
Catalyst for Action and The Right Resources. In Benefit of the Doubt, they spoke of how
the workers expectations and manner of working with them impacted their lives and
feelings of what was happening. They spoke about themselves as mothers and how
they wanted social workers to see them in this role. In Catalyst for Action, the mothers
spoke about how the involvement of the child welfare system motivated them towards
change - either voluntarily or by feeling forced into change. In The Right Resources,
they spoke of the services that they accessed and how the provision of supports
assisted them. Knowledge of the experiences of mothers gathered directly from their
told stories provides direction to the field of child protection. === Arts, Faculty of === Social Work, School of === Graduate
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