Parental substance use can expose children to harm and risks to their wellbeing, and removal from parents’ care is sometimes necessary. This can result in feelings of grief and poor mental health in parents, and concerns about a lack of support to prevent child removal or to have their children returned. Previous research has mainly focused on children or foster and adoptive parents’ experiences rather than birth parents. This study, therefore, aimed to develop an understanding of the experience of child removal and contact with services from the perspectives of mothers with an addiction.

Twelve mothers accessing Alcohol and Drug Recovery Services in Scotland and who had children removed from their care were interviewed about their lived experiences. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), four themes were identified – ‘safe/unsafe’, ‘changing identity’, ‘loss’, and ‘no way to win’ with important implications for service development. Services that can develop a sense of safety in their clients through continuity in workers, clarity and consistency about boundaries and communication with other services, and supporting mothers to feel respected and validated as a person and as a mother, regardless of whether their child/ren are removed, are more likely to engage their clients and achieve better outcomes.