Intimate Partner Woman Abuse in Alberta's Child Protection Policy and the Impact on Abused Mothers and their Children

Abstract

The increased attention to children’s exposure to intimate partner violence has prompted child protection services (CPS) across the globe to make changes to their policies, including amending existing child maltreatment legislation and developing organizational policies in an attempt to protect children. Despite the well-intentioned nature of these efforts, they have been criticized for producing negative unintended consequences such as re-victimizing battered women, ignoring abusive men, and failing to protect children. To date, few studies have assessed the impact of these policy changes, especially from the standpoint of abused mothers. This article presents the results of a recent qualitative study that examined Alberta’s CPS policy and its impact on 13 abused mothers. Most of the women considered the involvement to be unhelpful, intrusive, and punitive. Many experienced tremendous feelings of grief and loss and felt that they had lost their identity as mothers, especially after their children were apprehended. Almost all of the women discussed experiencing greater levels of stress and anxiety, which frequently resulted in serious physical and mental health problems. Finally, the women reported that child protection involvement, most notably, apprehension of their children, had a damaging impact to their children.