Written by experts with first-hand experience working with troubled mothers, this is the first book taking motherhood as a focus for criminal/social justice interventions. Covers the entire sequence affecting mothers caught up in such processes. A workbook for course providers and students across a range of disciplines.For practitioners by practitioners this highly informed collection will be of great value to course providers across a range of disciplines and groups dealing with women's issues. Approximately 12,000 women every year experience 'maternal incarceration', whilst many more are engaged in community-based supervision, support or interventions from public, private and voluntary services. Working with mothers who understandably already might feel challenged and vulnerable can be as demanding and difficult as it is rewarding and inspiring. The book aims to make this task more effective, purposeful and rewarding.Drawing on many years of practitioner experience of both the editor and chapter authors, who include a barrister, prosecutor, police officer, prison officer, probation officer, drugs worker, social worker and psychotherapist, the book aims to facilitate and develop understanding in relation to effective practice when engaging professionally with mothers, their lives, challenges, emotions and (ordinarily) their pre-occupations with their families.