Parents with Learning Disabilities

Parents with learning disabilities' experience of child protection procedures have been largely under researched. McGaw (2005) states it is estimated about 250,000 people in the United Kingdom are known to have learning disabilities. The aim of this research paper is to investigate the impact of child protection policies and procedures on these parents. Research has been done on the parenting capacity of parents with learning disabilities and their potential limitations and how this may impact on their children. There is less but significant research on how prevalent bias and prejudgments have elicited inaccurate assessments, how professional training and competence have effected outcomes for parents with learning disabilities and their children and how legal apparatus, constrained by resources and government dictates consolidate the intrinsic capability of current UK culture.

Since Michael Oliver's seminal work `nothing about us without us' on research and disabled people there has been a shift on the research about the disabled people away from people being the subject of research towards collaborative, participatory and action research. However, with notable exceptions Booth and Booth (1995) parents with learning disabilities' articulations on their distinctive experiences of child protection processes and procedures have been largely absent.

The key objective of this research paper is to inform the practice of people supporting these parents supporting these parents and others around them, the parent is expert, their subjective experience of the impact of the interventions of the professionals and the state and of friend's family and communities is what I aim to convey in a constructive accessible way.

2 BACKGROUND TO PROPOSED RESEARCH

2.1 Introduction

The department of Health, in their article valuing people defines learning disabilities as

A significantly reduced ability to understand new or complex information, to learn new skills (impaired intelligence); with a reduced ability to cope independently (impaired social functioning); which started before adulthood, with a lasting effect on development.

Parents and people with learning disability have an IQ of less than 70, and according to Emerson, et al., (2005) in the paper titled, Adults with learning difficulties in England 2003/4 they say that for the past two decades, adults with learning disabilities have become more likely develop relationships and form their own families. This has been attributed to their willingness to stay in the community rather than in the institutions and being recognized by the laws as normal human beings, including the right to be parents.

According to the Institute for Health Research (2004) it is approximated that the number of parents with learning disabilities is 53,000 people.

2.2 Barriers to Parenting

Parents with learning difficulties face a number of challenges when in their quest for good parenting. The challenges begin way before the child is conceived; the society attitudes towards such parents are usually negative. People with learning disabilities are perceived by the community as childlike and normally face a lot of resistance in their desire to be parents. According to Booth and Booth (1995) such pregnancies are viewed as a mistake, falling short of being termed as an