Protecting Our Children

Shaun and Marva’s past has been blighted with homelessness, violence and alcohol. The cameras follow Annie, their social worker, as she works with them during Marva’s fourth pregnancy. The couple have already had three children removed after social workers decided they were not fit to care for them.

Hospital-based social worker Annie has to make complicated decisions in order to protect Shaun and Marva’s unborn child. Meetings are difficult because their previous behaviour means she has to be accompanied at all times by two security guards.

Remarkably, Marva makes progress that no one thought possible. She stops drinking, splits up with Shaun and is housed in a woman’s safe house up until the birth. It’s an outcome that no one would have predicted, but whether she can bring up her own baby hangs in the balance.

Protecting Our Children is made in partnership with The Open University.