Pause for thought

Vulnerable women helped by programme

THE manager of a project supporting women on the condition they take contraception says it is putting an end to the “t rau ma” of mot hers bei ng sepa rated from their children.

Kathryn Baker, chief executive of Tayside Council on Alcohol (TCA), said the Pause Dundee project will reach capacity soon due to demand from vulnerable women in the city.

Launched last year as the first project of its kind in Scotland, Pause Dundee targets women who have had multiple children removed from their care.

Women who meet the criteria are approached and offered wideranging support for 18 months to get their lives back on track.

The programme is being administered by TCA and funded by several charities, in cooperation with Dundee City Council.

However, when Pause first hit the headlines last year attention centred on its most controversial aspect: that women must agree to use long-term contraception – a “Pause” from pregnancy – beyond the first 16 weeks of the scheme.

“There was a lot of misinformation at first,” said Kathryn.

“This isn’t a drug service, it’s not a parenting service – it’s for vulnerable women who have had children taken from them.

“It aims to break that cycle of repeated removal, so women who aren’t in a place to care for those children can take a pause in their pregnancy.”

Pause was born from the experiences of social worker Sophie Humphreys and NHS manager Georgina Perry, who had seen the traumatic effects removing a child from a parent first-hand.

They believed that having children at what amounted to “the wrong time” in their lives could be detrimental in the long term.

The first pilot scheme was launched in Hackney, London in 2013 and it has since expanded to 25 “practices” across the UK.

In Dundee, the programme costs £300,000 a year, but is expected to save over £1 million in corporate parenting costs.

Kathryn added: “There’s a real commitment in Dundee to look at what we can do better together.

“We’re not about working in silos and putting people in boxes.

“People’s lives don’t happen in boxes. The important thing is that women who take part want to take a pause from parenting.

“They may have problems with substances, they may have sexual health issues. I would say 100% of the women we are working with have experience of coercion, or domestic abuse.

“If women go on to have children in future the hope is they feel ready. I wouldn’t have taken this on if I didn’t think it was the right thing to do for women in Dundee.”

About 20 women have signed up to the scheme so far.

Kathryn expects to hit the limit of 24 people “in the next few weeks” – suggesting women see Pause as an opportunity to stabilise their lives. There is funding in place to expand the scheme.

Roisin Smith, the city council’s