Me and My Child': Parenting Experiences of Young Mothers Leaving Care (Report‪)‬

Teenage parenthood rates in the UK remain high, with approximately 38,000 conceptions among women under 18 years in England and Wales in 2009 (Office for National Statistics, 2011). One group at particularly high risk of teenage motherhood is looked after children (LAC), or care leavers. In England in 2010, 350 young mothers aged between 12 and 18 years were currently looked after by the local authority (Department for Education, 2011). Although this was a small proportion of the 13,700 females over 12 years in care in 2010, the rate of teenage parenthood appears to increase dramatically for care leavers, with one study finding that half the women in their study had a child within two years of leaving care (Biehal et al, 1995). Although often unplanned, teenage mothers in the care system regularly report parenthood to be a largely positive experience. The new-found responsibilities often help to bring their lifestyles under control and mark a significant positive turning point (Barn and Mantovani, 2007; Rolfe, 2008). For many, it has been a chance to set 'right' the 'wrong' of their past and to break the cycle of poor parenting. A recent study of 15 young pregnant women and mothers who grew up in care found parenthood was a restorative process (Pryce and Samuels, 2010). It had allowed them to forge new identities ones that were not dependent on the legacies of their parents but defined by their new role as a carer of their children.