ARTICLE
This article first
appeared in Representing Children, 13(3), 2000, 175-188
and is reproduced by permission of the editor. Click here
for downloadable pdf version.
Parents
with learning difficulties, child protection and the courts
Tim Booth
Professor of Social Policy, Department of Sociological Studies,
The University of Sheffield
Background
The number of parents
with learning difficulties* is unknown, though the numbers who
are known to the health and welfare services are widely acknowledged
to be rising steadily (Gillberg & Geijer-Karlsson, 1983;
Hoffman et al., 1990; Ray, Rubenstein, & Russo, 1994; Whitman
& Accardo, 1993).
Genders (1998),
for example, reports that almost two-thirds (62%) of the 266
community nurses she surveyed had parents with learning difficulties
on their current or recent caseload. Likewise, Stevenson (1998)
found that most social work practitioners in the Children and
Families teams she studied had experience of working with such
parents, and two-thirds of them were currently involved with
at least one family headed by a parent or parents with learning
difficulties. McGaw (1997) estimates there are 250,000 parents
with learning difficulties known to health and social services
agencies in the UK.
The reasons for
this trend are complex and it is not easy to tell if more referrals
really mean there are more parents. On the one hand, policies
that reduce controls over the sexuality of people with learning
difficulties might be expected to lead to more of them having
children (Attard, 1988; Haavik & Menninger, 1981). The fact
that increases in the number of parents have been reported in
all countries which have moved towards services based on 'ordinary
life' principles (King's Fund Centre, 1980) and community living
would appear to support this interpretation (Danish Ministry
of Social Affairs, 1996).
On the other hand,
families on the margins of competence might be finding it harder
to manage in an increasingly competitive society. Greater intervention
by the state in family life, closer surveillance of parents and
their children and the widening of the child protection net (Thorpe,
1994; Thorpe, 1995) may have brought more parents to the attention
of the public services.
Whatever the reasons
for the apparent increase in families headed by a parent or parents
with learning difficulties, they now represent a sizeable population
whose special needs have so far not been adequately addressed
by the health and social services (Booth & Booth, 1994b;
Llewellyn, McConnell, & Bye, 1995; Tymchuk, 1990).
There is a small
but growing body of international research on parenting by people
with learning difficulties. Reviews of this literature (Andron
& Tymchuk, 1987; Booth & Booth, 1993; Dowdney & Skuse,
1993; Llewellyn, 1990; Sheerin, 1997; Tymchuk, 1990) show that
these families often receive a raw deal from the statutory services
characterised by an 'over zealous' approach to the assessment
of risks (Social Services Inspectorate, 1999) and an underinvestment
in the kind of services and supports that might enable them to
bring up their children.
The Support Gap
An accumulation
of well-documented failures in the service system point to the
existence of a yawning support gap which threatens the capacity
of mothers and fathers with learning difficulties to cope with
the parenting role. Key features of professional practice and
service organisation that undermine parents in their parenting
and heighten their vulnerability include:
- The presumption
of incompetence - or the belief that parents' innate limitations
make them unfitted for parenthood and then only seeing the evidence
that supports this preconception.
- A deficiency perspective
- or a tendency always to focus on people's deficits and on what
they cannot do instead of their strengths and how to build on
them.
- System abuse -
meaning policies and practices that harm the families they are
supposed to support or protect. System abuse is the unacknowledged
scourge of families (see, for example, Booth and Booth, 1998,
chapter 9). It is rampant, pervasive and destructive of family
life. The evidence presented below regarding the discriminatory
treatment of families involved in care and related proceedings
serves as a case in point. Lily's experience (see boxed insert)
offers another.
- Competence-inhibiting
support - meaning support that deskills parents, reinforces their
feelings of inadequacy and undermines their independence.
|
System abuse:
Lily's story
Lily is 23. She
has three children, a boy aged four and two girls aged three
and two. All three children had been placed on Care Orders because
of their father's violent behaviour towards Lily. In desperation,
she upped and moved 150 miles from her home city in order to
escape his brutality, leaving behind her family and friends to
start a new life. But she found it hard to manage three young
children on her own in a strange city with no-one to turn to
for support. The children also missed their father. Unsettled
by the move, their behaviour became more difficult and Lily finally
approached Social Services for help. When workers found bite
marks on the youngest child, her sister was identified as the
culprit and removed from the family home. A support worker was
put in but the elder boy had been further upset by his sister
being taken away and his behaviour became more aggressive ('They're
not coming for me', was his constant refrain). Other incidents
- a hospital report that Lily had taken the two-year old to A&E
with a black eye and a referral from the nursery saying that
she had told them her son had swallowed some medicine - led to
an Emergency Core Group meeting being convened at which it was
decided to withdraw family support to see how she managed. A
week later Lily was informed both children were being taken that
day. Her son was taken out of nursery and it was a week before
she knew where he was or was allowed to see him. Setting mothers
up to fail in this way is a common example of system abuse.
|
- Top-down priorities
- meaning that the professional as trained expert is usually
in control and running the show. . The Social Services Inspectorate
(1999) comments on finding assessments and outcomes influenced
by a ' "professional knows best" culture', in which
only a 'tokenistic acknowledgement' is given to the views of
parents, contrary to the emphasis which the Children Act 1989
puts on working in partnership with parents.
- A child-centred
focus - the primary focus of attention for practitioners is usually
the welfare of the children. Too often the needs of the parents
are overlooked even though they may be unable to do their best
by their children until their own problems are sorted out. The
Social Services Inspectorate (1998) found that 'the majority
of disabled parents we saw did not consider their needs had been
recognised' and workers rarely looked at how 'to support and
help the parents in the discharge of their parental duties' (Goodinge,
2000).
- Poor assessments
- the Social Services Inspectorate found demonstrable evidence
of 'shortcomings in the assessment of the needs of children and
their disabled parents' (Goodinge, 2000).
- Conflicting responsibilities
- there is a constant tension between the 'policing' and 'enabling'
role of social workers. As Harris (1990) observes, families in
difficulty 'typically turn to the very professionals who have
the main statutory responsibility for child protection.'
- Organisational
barriers - the needs of parents with learning difficulties cut
across service boundaries which too often leads to them being
owned by no-one. As parents they come under Children and Families
Teams but as disabled adults they are dealt with by Learning
Disability Teams. Glennie et al (1998), for example, observe
how parents in Nottinghamshire who presented 'grave concerns
to the children's service because of child neglect, did not meet
the threshold for adult service.' As the Social Services Inspectorate
(1998; 1999a; 1999b; 1999c; 1999d; 1999e; 1999f; 2000) found,
this results in a fragmented service response, lack of co-ordination,
inadequate record keeping, difficulties in applying eligibility
criteria, poor management information, a failure to take a holistic
view of the family's needs, and budgetary inflexibility.
- Blaming the victim
- family and child care problems are often ascribed to the limitations
of the parents when they owe more to environmental pressures
or deficiencies in the support services. Jackie's story (see
boxed insert) provides a personal example to illustrate the point.
- Crisis-driven services
- families often have to wait until a crisis erupts before the
services will respond.
- Lack of trust -
many parents have had bad experiences of the services in the
past and are often reluctant to seek help even when they need
it for fear of where it might lead.
- High drop-out rates
- keeping families interested and involved in early intervention
programmes, parenting training programmes, support groups and
the like is a recurring problem.
|
Blaming the victim:
Jackie's story
Jackie, who is now
thirty, had her first baby when she was fourteen and a second
a year later. Both were adopted. Five more children followed
in quick succession. Jackie has never lived with the father:
he has remained permanently in the background although they have
maintained a long-standing relationship. As a lone parent, Jackie
found it increasingly difficult to control the children's behaviour
as they got older and, when she again became pregnant, all five
children were taken into foster care. Only then, with all her
children gone, was Jackie allocated a family support worker.
Her new baby too was removed at birth despite her insistence
that she'd have no trouble just managing the one: after all,
she said, she'd brought up five on her own until the oldest was
ten. The baby, she was told, would be freed for adoption. Later
she learned that social services were looking to have the three
youngest of her other children adopted also. Currently the children
have been split up. Jackie thinks she may be pregnant again.
Throughout this
time, Jackie has been treated as the problem rather than a person
with problems. The whole sorry cycle seems set to repeat itself
unless someone looks beyond her learning difficulties at how
she can be supported as a mother.
|
Child Removal and
Parenting Failure
A common finding
running through the international research is the high risk parents
face of losing their children. This finding appears to hold in
all countries with an infrastructure of child protection services,
although the rates of removal vary from study to study and country
to country (reflecting both geographical variations in policy,
practice and service provision, and the problems of collecting
this sort of data for what is, in research terms, a hidden population).
The New York State
Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled (1993a)
found that ‘(a)lmost one out of every two families….had
at one time lost the custody, at least temporarily, of one or
more of their children’. On the basis of a review of agency
records in St. Louis, Accardo and Whitman (1990) report that
103 of 226 children (45.6%) born to 76 parents with learning
difficulties had been removed from the family home. Feldman (1998)
goes so far as to suggest that, in ‘the United States and
Canada, as many as 80% of these parents have their parenting
rights terminated’. In Denmark, Faureholm (1996) puts the
figure of children permanently placed away from home at 30%,
as does Pixa-Keltner (1998) in Germany. Van Hove and Wellens
(1995) give the proportion of children living away from their
parents as 40% in Belgium. A prevalence study in Australia identified
77 parents with 116 children of whom one third had been taken
into care (McConnell & Llewellyn, 1998). In Britain, Scally
reported in 1973 that only 30% of the children of parents with
learning difficulties in his administrative study were ‘being
reared….in their own homes’. More recently, Cross and
Marks (1995) found that a total of 13 children from 18 reported
pregnancies and 16 live births were subject to child protection
proceedings: ‘In 7 cases proceedings were started within
1 week of birth, 6 of those 7 starting at birth itself.’
In our own study of 20 parents (Booth & Booth, 1994b), 14
had had one or more of their children placed in short-term or
permanent care.
These facts appear
to indicate widespread parenting failure among this group of
parents. However, as Dowdney and Skuse (1993) have pointed out,
a child’s reception into care is an unsatisfactory criterion
of parental inadequacy in the case of parents with learning difficulties.
A number of variables mediate the relationship between parental
adequacy and child outcomes (Booth & Booth, 1994a). As Czukar
(1983), for instance, observes, parents with learning difficulties
‘are especially vulnerable to losing custody of their children
in child welfare adjudications because of prejudicial attitudes,
unfounded assumptions about inadequate parenting, lack of appropriate
support services, and other problems.’ Gilhool and Gran
(1985) are supported by Hayman (1990) in arguing that US law
governing the rights of mentally disabled parents is so laden
with stereotypes about their abilities and potential as to ‘prejudice
decisionmakers’ and lead to a judicial bias against these
families.
Barriers to Justice
According to McConnell
and Llewellyn (2000b) existing research shows that parents with
learning difficulties receive a raw deal in child protection
court proceedings and they are led to the stark conclusion that
'unnecessary harm is being done'. Bray (1999) echoes the point.
She argues that, 'Law, policies and practice are often based
on outdated beliefs and assumptions, while the real needs and
abilities of these parents are ignored. Ultimately, children
and parents suffer.' Evidence, mainly from Australia and North
America, is beginning to accumulate that parents with learning
difficulties are:
- Disproportionately
represented in child care proceedings.
A survey by the Family Support Services Association in NSW, Australia
found that parents with ‘identified cognitive limitations’
were almost twice as likely as non-disabled parents to have involvement
with the NSW Department of Community Services in matters of child
protection (reported in McConnell & Llewellyn, 1998). More
recently, the same researchers concluded a prevalence and outcomes
study of families headed by parents with disabilities who appeared
in care proceedings before the NSW Children's Court. They found
a 'substantial over-representation of ...parents with intellectual
disability compared to the estimated prevalence figures for these
parents in the community' (McConnell & Llewellyn, 2000a).
- Less likely
to have received support in their parenting – or to have
received inadequate support – before care proceedings are
initiated.
Research from around the world continues to affirm Gilhool and
Gran’s (1985) conclusion that ‘adequate support systems
for retarded parents do not exist’. Child protection agencies
are ‘ill-equipped to address the needs of (these) parents’
(New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally
Disabled, 1993b). On the one hand, staff in these agencies lack
training and expertise in working with parents who have learning
difficulties. Mandeville (1990) reports that ‘agencies with
the most expertise in developmental disabilities are the least
likely to be involved with families’. On the other hand,
child protection agencies are not funded to provide intensive
services nor ‘organized to provide help to parents who will
need support over the long term.’ (ibid.)
- At risk of having
their parental responsibility terminated on the basis of evidence
that would not hold up against non-disabled parents.
In most American states, ‘the statutory and common law…treats
disabled and nondisabled parents unequally’ with the result
that ‘it is easier to terminate a retarded parent’s
rights than those of a nonretarded parent guilty of the same
neglect.’ (Gilhool & Gran, 1985) Levesque (1996) also
concludes that the ‘rights of mentally disabled parents
are, in practice, being terminated when states present evidence
which, if used against nondisabled parents, would not be enough
to sever the parental relationship.’
- Likely to have
their competence as parents judged against stricter criteria
or harsher standards than other parents.
Greenspan and Budd (1986) observe how parents with learning difficulties
often live under the close scrutiny of child protection agencies
and that such scrutiny ‘sometimes results in the application
of stricter standards of accountability…..than might be
applied to "normal" parents.’ Levesque (1996),
too, concludes that ‘mentally disabled parents essentially
are being held to a higher standard of parental performance……more
seems to be expected from mentally disabled than from nondisabled
parents.’ According to Payne (Payne, 1978), parents with
learning difficulties are more likely to be judged inadequate
and deprived of their parental rights than homosexual parents,
incarcerated parents or parents with a diagnosed mental illness.
Worse still, as Painz (1993) has pointed out, parents are often
left striving to meet standards that are never made explicit.
- More likely
to have their children removed and their parental rights terminated.
Hayman (1990), for example, observes that the ‘presumption
with mentally retarded parents is that physical removal of the
child is most consistent with the child’s best interests.’
In a study of 206 consecutive referrals for protective services
to the Boston Juvenile Court, Taylor et al (1991) found that
parents with learning difficulties had less prior court involvement
and greater acceptance of court-ordered services but still had
their children permanently removed more often than nondiagnosed
parents.
- Disadvantaged
in the child protection and court process by rules of evidence
and procedure, their own limitations and inadequacies in services.
An Australian study (Keyzer, Carney, & Tait, 1997) suggests
that legal services are poorly equipped in both resources and
training to represent parents with learning difficulties. Hayman
(1990) surveyed cases reported in the USA since 1965 and concludes
that ‘the fact of mental retardation, once established,
often has the effect of shifting the various burdens of proof
from the state to the parent…..(O)nce a court is satisfied
that it is in fact dealing with a mentally retarded parent, it
often insists that the parent bear the burden of proving her
fitness or potential for fitness…’.
Other factors working to the disadvantage of parents are the
lack of experience on the part of most child protection workers
in dealing with people who have learning difficulties (New York
State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally Disabled,
1993b); lack of co-ordination among services which results in
many families ‘falling through the service net’ (Whitman
& Accardo, 1990); lack of independent advice and legal representation;
legal representatives who are not skilled at communicating with
people who have learning difficulties and who may share the presumption
of inadequacy (Hayman, 1990); and parents’ own difficulties
in understanding the adjudicative process and how best to present
themselves.
- Less likely
to receive support in correcting the conditions leading to termination.
The belief that the innate limitations of people with learning
difficulties make them unfitted for parenthood leads to the view
that any parenting deficiencies on their part are irremediable
and, consequently, that the provision of training or rehabilitative
services will avail nothing. As Gilhool and Gran (1985) comment,
‘few courts (in the USA) have been persuaded to order such
services be provided as an alternative to severance of the retarded
parent’s relationship with a child.’
Bringing These
Findings Home
What we know about
the barriers to justice facing parents with learning difficulties
involved in care protection cases derives mostly from the evidence
of international research. There has been no research in England
that examines how such are handled by social services and the
courts, explores what factors are weighed in the balance when
making decisions about the best interests of children from such
families or offers any direct evidence as to whether parents
with learning difficulties encounter similar discriminatory biases
However, evidence
from a number of sources, including the DoH's 'Messages from
Research' programme (Department of Health, 1995), recent work
by the Social Services Inspectorate (Goodinge, 2000), newspaper
reportage of individual cases (see, for example,Marchant, 1995;
Pragnell, 1994; Valios, 1995; Whitely, 1995) and user studies
of parents' own experiences of the child protection system suggests
that the kind of rough justice evident in the findings of international
research may have its parallels in this country. For example:
- Lancashire County
Council were censured by the Local Government Ombudsman for maladministration
in failing to provide the level of counselling and support needed
by a mother with learning difficulties whose child had been taken
into care. The Ombudsman recommended that the Council ‘need
to ensure that their social workers have a clearer view of what
their aims are at any one time when working with such clients.’
(Report by the Local Government Ombudsman, 1991) The failure
to provide the right kind of timely, co-ordinated support is
known to pitch families into crises that trigger intervention
by child protection (Jackson, 1998). Evidence shows that 'where
professionals fail to provide adequate support in the early stages
of intervention there is an increased likelihood of the child
becoming looked after' (Department of Health, 2000b).
- The work of professionals
tends to be focussed on child protection, narrowly understood,
rather than on the provision of compensatory support services
(Gibbons, 1995) with the result that ‘Section 47 enquiries
dominate at the expense of Section 17 services.’ (Little,
1995) The Government's efforts to refocus children's services
nationally in order to promote and strengthen family ties have
so far shown that it is easier to review policies and change
priorities than it is to alter social work practice .
- The existence of
a support gap, documented above, means that parents are frequently
pitched into the child protection process while being denied
the kind of support they are known to need in order to succeed.
The SSI have expressed 'particular concern' about the 'lack of
awareness' on the part of social services staff in some areas
(see, for example,Social Services Inspectorate, 1999d) of the
kind of specialist help that a mother or father with learning
difficulties might require in order to succeed as a parent.
- Critical decisions
about the children of 'learning disabled parents' (such as decisions
about them being placed on or remaining on the child protection
register and/or being removed from the family) are being made
'on inappropriate or inadequate information' (Goodinge, 2000).
Standards of case recording and of files generally for this group
of parents are reported as causing 'concern' with key information
missing (to a degree likely to have 'a direct impact on the quality
of assessments undertaken'); no way of 'bringing together the
key findings of different staff working with a family'; evidence
of judgemental decision-making; and the omission of material
about the impact of the parent's disability (see Section 7 in
the various Social Services Inspectorate reports on individual
local authorities).
- Disabled parents
are reported to view social workers in Children and Families
teams as ‘insufficiently knowledgeable about either disability
or how to enable disabled adults to parent’ (Social Services
Inspectorate, 1998).
- The principle of
permanency planning appears to be pressing workers into using
adoption as the preferred alternative form of care in cases involving
parents with learning difficulties even when the needs of the
children suggest that ‘a more open model….which encourages
continuing contact with parents may be more appropriate’
(Glennie, Cruden, & Thorn, 1998). This outcome mirrors experience
in the United States where the 'new national adoption policy,
with its briefer time period before termination of parental rights,
has heightened concern about discriminatory practice' (Kirshbaum
& Hansen, 1999).
- Too often parents
with learning difficulties lose even when they win. Anecdotal
evidence abounds of parents who have received court judgements
in their favour only to face a local authority which runs away
from the decision. A letter I received recently, extracted in
the boxed insert below, illustrates the dilemma.
Endnote
These issues are
best seen against the background of the Government's commitment
to improving the quality of services for supporting children
and their families and, particularly, in the context of the Quality
Protects Programme (Department of Health, 1998) and the new framework
for assessing the needs of children and their families (Department
of Health, 2000a).
'Quality Protects'
is concerned with 'getting decisions right about when (children)
will benefit from public care and when services should be provided
to them while living with their families.' (Department of Health,
1998). All the signs are that we are still a long way from achieving
these objectives in respect of the children of parents with learning
difficulties, never mind ensuring them and their parents equal
treatment under the law and securing their basic human rights.
One of the objectives
the Government has set for improving children's social services
is 'to ensure that children whose parents have specific needs
arising out of disability or health conditions enjoy the same
life chances as all other children in the locality' (Department
of Health, 1999).
|
The support worker's
story: A plea for help
'I apologise for
writing to you out of the blue. I used to be a support worker
for a couple where the woman had moderate learning difficulties
and the man was classified as "borderline". I was their
support worker throughout the woman's pregnancy and the first
few months of their son's life. They have had "extensive"
involvement with social services and the courts, much of it somewhat
less than helpful.
Their son is now
two years old and the courts have decided to allow them to keep
him, as long as they have support. Now they live in a shared
home with another family, where the parents are their support
workers. They share most amenities in their new home and get
round-the-clock support with parenting and life skills from their
support workers. The support workers are extremely experienced
in this home-based support work. It is on behalf of all of them
that I am writing to you.
The local authority
has, until very recently, argued that the difficulties of the
parents meant they could not look after a child. Various independent
assessors submitted evidence to the court which made the judge
disagree with this. He ordered that their son should live with
them and their support workers. During the course of legal proceedings,
which have gone on for two years, there has been a great deal
of confusion as to who should be paying for the support of this
family. Communication within social services, between adults
and children's services and between middle management and director
levels had not been good or swift. For the parents and for support
workers this has been exhausting, particularly as so much about
the legal system is intimidating and confusing. For this borough
the placement is setting a precedent, both in terms of the principle
of supporting parents with learning disabilities and in terms
of finances, and their response to the situation has not been
well organised.
I have maintained
a close friendship with the family since I stopped working with
them. I am contacting you to see if you could give me/us any
information about the "normal" or "reasonable"
levels of funding that I could pass on to the lawyers of the
parents and the support workers.'
|
We shall not come
close to meeting this objective in the case of families headed
by a parent or parents with learning difficulties until we begin
to close the support gap that makes worse their social exclusion,
prejudices the outcomes of later intervention and contributes
to the persistence of stereotypical thinking about their competence.
References
Accardo, P., &
Whitman, B. (1990). Children of mentally retarded parents. American
Journal of Diseases of Children, 144, 69-70.
Andron, L., & Tymchuk, A. (1987). Parents who are mentally
retarded. In A. Craft (Ed.), Mental Handicap and Sexuality: Issues
and Perspectives . Tunbridge Wells: D.J. Costello.
Attard, M. T. (1988). Mentally handicapped parents - some issues
to consider in relation to pregnancy. British Journal of Mental
Subnormality, 34(66), 3-9.
Booth, T., & Booth, W. (1993). Parenting with learning difficulties:
lessons for practitioners. British Journal of Social Work, 23,
459-480.
Booth, T., & Booth, W. (1994a). Parental adequacy, parenting
failure and parents with learning difficulties. Health and Social
Care in the Community, 2, 161-172.
Booth, T., & Booth, W. (1994b). Parenting Under Pressure:
Mothers and Fathers with Learning Difficulties. Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Booth, T., & Booth, W. (1994c). The use of depth interviewing
with vulnerable subjects: lessons from a research study of parents
with learning difficulties. Social Science and Medicine, 39(3),
415-424.
Booth, T., & Booth, W. (1998a). Growing Up with Parents who
have Learning Difficulties. London: Routledge.
Booth, W., & Booth, T. (1998b). Advocacy for Parents with
Learning Difficulties: Developing Advocacy Support. Brighton:
Pavilion Publishing.
Bray, A. (1999). Parents who have Intellectual Disabilities:
Challenges to Systems of Child Protection. Dunedin, New Zealand:
Donald Beasley Research Institute.
Cross, G., & Marks, B. (1995). Parents with Learning Disabilities
. Broadstairs, Kent: Canterbury and Thanet Community Healthcare.
Czukar, G. (1983). Legal aspects of parenthood for mentally retarded
persons. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Handicap, 2, 57-69.
Danish Ministry of Social Affairs. (1996). Parenting with Intellectual
Disability: Report from the Conference . Copenhagen: Denmark.
Department of Health. (1995). Child Protection: Messages from
Research. London: HMSO.
Department of Health. (1998). The Quality Protects programme:
Transforming children's services. LAC(98)28, 11 November.
Department of Health. (1999). The Government's Objectives for
Children's Social Services. September, London: DoH.
Department of Health. (2000a). Framework for the Assessment of
Children in Need and their Families. London: The Stationery Office.
Department of Health. (2000b). Assessing Children in Need and
their Families: Practice Guidance. London: The Stationery Office.
Department of Health. (2000c). Achieving Fair Access to Adult
Social Care Services. London: The Stationery Office.
Dowdney, L., & Skuse, D. (1993). Parenting provided by adults
with mental retardation. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry,
34(1), 25-47.
Farmer, R., Rohde, J. and Sacks, B. (1993). Changing Services
for People with Learning Disabilities. London: Chapman and Hall.
Faureholm, J. (1996). From lifetime client to fellow citizen.
Paper presented at the Parenting with intellectual disability,
Snekkerstein, Denmark.
Feldman, M. (1998). Parents with intellectual disabilities: Implications
and interventions. In J. Lutzker (Ed.), Handbook of Child Abuse
Research and Treatment (pp. 401-420). New York: Plenum Press.
Genders, N. (1998). The role of the community nurse (learning
disability): Parenting by people with learning disabilities .
London: The Maternity Alliance.
Gibbons, J. (1995). Family support in child protection. In M.
Hill, R. H. Kirk, & D. Part (Eds.), Supporting Families (pp.
87-98). London: HMSO.
Gilhool, T., & Gran, J. (1985). Legal rights of disabled
parents. In S. Thurman (Ed.), Children of Handicapped Parents:
Research and clinical perspectives . New York: Academic Press.
Gillberg, C., & Geijer-Karlsson, M. (1983). Children born
to mentally retarded women: a 1-21 year follow-up study of 41
cases. Psychological Medicine, 13, 891-894.
Glennie, S., Cruden, B., & Thorn, J. (1998). Neglected children:
Maintaining hope, optimism and direction . Nottingham: Nottinghamshire
County Area Child Protection Committee.
Goodinge, S. (2000). A jigsaw of services: Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role. March. Department
of Health- Social Services Inspectorate: London.
Greenspan, S., & Budd, K. (1986). Research on mentally retarded
parents. In J. Gallagher & P. Vietze (Eds.), Families of
Handicapped Persons: Research programmes and policy issues .
Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
Haavik, S. F., & Menninger, K. A. (1981). Sexuality, Law
and the Developmentally Disabled Person: Legal and clinical aspects
of marriage, parenthood and sterilization. Baltimore: Paul H.
Brookes.
Harris, R. (1990). A matter of balance: power and resistance
in child protection policy. Journal of Social Welfare 5, 332-339.
Hayman, R. (1990). Presumptions of justice: law, politics and
the mentally retarded parent. Harvard Law Review, 103, 1201-1271.
Hoffman, C., Mandeville, H., Webster, S. K., Heighway, S., Ullmer,
D., Mincberg, B., Snodgrass, P., Murphy-Simon, K., & Wenger,
B. (1990). The Amelioration of Health Problems of Children with
Parents with Mental Retardation 1987-1990 . Madison, Wisconsin,
USA: Wisconsin Council on Developmental Disabilities and the
Waisman Center on Mental Retardation and Human Development.
Jackson, C. (1998). Listen to mother. Mental Health Care, 1(7),
217-219.
Keyzer, P., Carney, T., & Tait, D. (1997). Against the odds:
Parents with intellectual disability, Report to the Disability
Services Sub-Committee . Sydney: Commonwealth Department of Health
and Family Services.
Kings Fund Centre. (1980). An Ordinary Life: Comprehensive locally-based
residential services for mentally handicapped people, London:
Kings Fund Centre.
Kirshbaum, M., & Hansen, S. (1999). Parents with cognitive
disabilities. Parenting with a Disability, 7(2), 1(8).
Levesque, R. (1996). Maintaining children's relations with mentally
disabled parents: Recognizing difference and the difference it
makes. Children's Legal Rights Journal, 16(2), 14-22.
Little, M. (1995). Child protection: messages from research.
Representing Children, 8(3), 20-26.
Llewellyn, G. (1990). People with intellectual disability as
parents: perspectives from the professional literature. Australian
and New Zealand Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 16(4),
369-380.
Llewellyn, G., McConnell, D., & Bye, R. (1995). Parents with
Intellectual Disability: Support and Services required by Parents
with Intellectual Disability . Sydney: Faculty of Health Sciences,
University of Sydney.
Mandeville, H. (1990). Supported Parenting: Finding a home in
the service system . Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Council on
Developmental Disabilities.
Marchant, C. (1995). Parenting pain. Community Care, 1051(105119-25
January), 19-25.
McConnell, D., & Llewellyn, G. (1998). Parental disability
and the threat of child removal. Family Matters, 51(4), 33-36.
McConnell, D., & Llewellyn, G. (2000a). Parents with a disability
and the NSW Children's Court., Report to the Law Foundation of
New South Wales, University of Sydney, Australia.
McConnell, D., & Llewellyn, G. (2000b). Disability, discrimination
and statutory child protection proceedings. Disability and Society,
15 (6), October, (forthcoming).
McGaw, S. (1997). Practical support for parents with learning
disabilities. In J. O'Hara & A. Sperlinger (Eds.), Adults
with Learning Disabilities: A Practical Approach for Health Professionals
(pp. 123-138). Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Mercer, J. (1973). Labelling the Mentally Retarded: Clinical
and Social Systems Perspectives on Mental Retardation. London:
University of California Press.
New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally
Disabled. (1993a). Parenting with Special Needs: Parents who
are Mentally Retarded and their Children . Albany, New York:
New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally
Disabled.
New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally
Disabled. (1993b). Serving Parents who are Mentally Retarded:
A Review of Eight Parenting Programs in New York State . New
York: New York State Commission on Quality of Care for the Mentally
Disabled.
Payne, A. (1978). The law and the problem parent: custody and
parental rights of homosexual, mentally retarded, mentally ill
and incarcerated parents. Journal of Family Law, 16, 797-818.
Painz, F. (1993). Parents with a Learning Disability . Norwich:
University of East Anglia.
Payne, A. (1978). The law and the problem parent: custody and
parental rights of homosexual, mentally retarded, mentally ill
and incarcerated parents. Journal of Family Law, 16, 797-818.
Pixa-Kettner, U. (1998). Parents with intellectual disability
in Germany: Results of a nation-wide study. Journal of Applied
Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 11(4), 355-364.
Pragnell, C. (1994, Tuesday 13 December). Torn from their mothers'
arms. The Independent, pp. p.18.
Ray, N., Rubenstein, H., & Russo, N. (1994). Understanding
the parents who are mentally retarded: guidelines for family
preservation programs. Child Welfare, 73(6), 725-743.
Report by the Local Government Ombudsman. (1991). Investigation
into Complaint No. 89/C/2577 Against Lancashire County Council,
17 December. York: Commission for Local Administration in England.
Sheerin, F. (1997). Parents with learning disabilities: A review
of the literature. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28(1), 126-133.
Simons, K., Booth, T., & Booth, W. (1989). Speaking out:
user studies and people with learning difficulties. Research,
Policy and Planning, 7(1), 9-18.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1998). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Southampton
. Bristol: West inspection Group: Department of Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1999a). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Cornwall
County Council . Bristol: West Inspection Group: Department of
Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1999b). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Doncaster
Metropolitan Borough Council . Gateshead: North Eastern Inspection
Group: Department of Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1999c). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: London Borough
of Merton . London West Inspection Group: Department of Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1999d). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Northamptonshire
County Council . Bristol: West inspection Group: Department of
Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1999e). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Sefton .
Manchester: North West Inspection Group: Department of Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (1999f). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Thurrock
. London Inspection Group: Department of Health.
Social Services Inspectorate. (2000). Inspection of services
to support disabled adults in their parenting role: Sandwell
Metropolitan Borough Council . Bristol: West Inspection Group:
Department of Health.
Stevenson, M. (1998). Social workers' attitudes to their practice
with parents with learning difficulties under the provisions
of the Children Act 1989: A descriptive study. Unpublished MA
in Socio-Legal Studies, University of Sheffield, Sheffield.
Taylor, C., Norman, D., Murphy, J., Jellinek, M., Quinn, D.,
Poitrast, F., & Goshko, M. (1991). Diagnosed intellectual
and emotional impairment among parents who seriously mistreat
their children: Prevalence, type, and outcome in a court sample.
Child Abuse and Neglect, 15, 389-401.
Thorpe, D. (1994). Evaluating child protection. Buckingham: Open
University Press.
Thorpe, D. (1995). Some implications of recent child protection
research. Representing Children, 8(3), 27-31.
Tymchuk, A. (1990). Parents with Mental Retardation: A National
Strategy. SHARE/UCLA Parenting Project, Department of Psychiatry,
School of Medicine, UCLA.
Valios, N. (1995, 13-19 July). Labelled by the system. Community
Care, 7.
Van Hove, G., & en Wellens, V. (1995). Ouders met een mentale
handicap: realitet en begeleiding. Orthopedagogische Reeks Gent,
5.
Whitely, P. (1995, 26 January-1 February). Parents with learning
difficulties lose babies. Community Care, p.2.
Whitman, B., & Accardo, P. (Eds.). (1990). When a Parent
is Mentally Retarded. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
Whitman, B., & Accardo, P. (1993). The parent with mental
retardation: rights, responsibilities and issues. Journal of
Social Work and Human Sexuality, 8(2), 123-136.
|
