Perspectives

Painted artwork of parents with their child

Parents' voices: 'listening in order to see'

The first step in supporting parents is learning to listen.

'We had some people tell us we shouldn't have a baby, you know. But they don't seem to understand it's not their choice, you know. It's ours.' (Lamarr Johnson)

'Nobody was there for me. It was always professional people for the kids. I needed somebody for me, not just the kids.' (Jackie Knight)

'He's not my kid now. They've taken over. I like them here but I don't like sharing kid with me though. I like him for myself like other mothers do. I'm getting laughed at. I haven't said anything. Bloomin' daren't.' (Julie Burnley)

'They send kids of about 25, if that, not qualified, they might just be learning. They were giving me all this advice about children and I says to them, "Well, have you any children, love? Are you married?" I thought, they're trying to give me all this advice with no children.' (Mr Stewart)

'We may need extra help, but we don't need someone to look after us all the time. We need to be allowed to make mistakes so we can learn.'

'We never knew when different workers were goin' to show up or what time. One worker would tell us to do one thing, so we would and then another would say, "No, you can't have Trevor until you do that another way." The hardest part was always having so many people here from the social services and that, sorta watching us to see if we made a mistake.' (Don Thibault)

'We love him and Virginia and Kathy help us learn what to do. They don't do it for us. We do it because we're Louis's mum and dad. In a way it's nice to have Kathy and Virginia now while we're learnin', but someday it will just be us. Our family.' (Hazel Neal)

'I'm just waiting. I'm going to wait 'till he knocks on the door, that's all. You see, if I have him back I'll be a family, a proper family. He knows I'm his mum; his first mum and first dad.' (Julie Burnley talking about her adopted son)

'The best thing has been staying together and not being split up which I thought we might be, and was very worried about. I enjoy having my daughter around me although she gets under my feet sometimes. Being a good parent makes me feel proud.' (Julie Shute)

'I like looking after Craig but sometimes I become stressed and I think I can't cope. When he is asleep, then I listen to relaxing music or have a nice long bath, go to bed early and watch TV. His first smile was very special to me. It's good being a mum. You have your own child and it is special to you. Steve and I are much closer since we had our son. We love being a mum and dad.' (Tracey Shaw)

'I thought the (support) group might be helpful, because other people have had kids taken away like Kevin and me. I bet they went through the same pain and stress. I want to understand why other parents have got their kids and we are empty inside.' (Eleanor Hardy)

'There are things you can't talk about with somebody who hasn't been there. A lot of us (in the support group) have lost our children in one way or another. We can talk to somebody about it. Talking to people who haven't had that experience, they say, "we know how you feel" but they really don't. One way or another we've all been there somehow. That's why we can all get along so well, and that's why we can be so supportive.' (Dorothy)

'Everyone supported each other and we are friends. Getting into the (support) group stopped me looking at four walls. I found the group and having an advocate useful for all the information. I believe the group helped everyone that came. When a parent is talking in the group, and listening to what they are going through each week, and taking an interest in, and just by talking to new people, you think you're not the only one in the world with problems.' (Catherine)

'I like being a mum, but it's stressful at times, like during the day when I have to take care of them by myself. It's hard to know what to feed them and how to dress them, the daily planning. Also it makes it hard to play with them, 'cos I'm tired. And I feel distant from them when I worry and I worry all the time. I don't know, I just worry about stuff, a lot of things, all the time. When I'm alone and I worry I can't think of anything else. If they had some sort of group for parents like me to get together and talk about parenting...' (Marie)

'When somebody listens to me every week and makes me feel good about myself, I'm a better mum. Nobody can take that away from me. I can talk to her [the practitioner], tell her everything that's on my mind, talk to her like I don't talk to anybody else. She doesn't judge me or make me feel bad about things even when I do something wrong. She helps me figure things out. That's what parenting is all about, finding people who can help you do it well when you're not sure of what to do.' (Averil)

News and views

Comment on the White Paper

The recent White Paper, Valuing people: a new strategy for learning disability for the 21st century, is to be welcomed for acknowledging that support for parents with learning difficulties is 'patchy and undeveloped'. Indeed, Valuing people is distinguished as the first official policy statement in the UK to recognise that there are people with learning difficulties who are parents too. Their recognition is important because embracing the key principles of rights, independence, choice and inclusion, rightly promoted by the White Paper, will undoubtedly mean that more people with learning difficulties will make the same decision as their fellow citizens to become a parent.

That said, the White Paper falls way short of honestly following through its vision, that every 'individual should have the support and opportunity to be the person he or she wants to be' (para. 2.1), in the case of those who choose to be parents.

The call for directors of Social Services 'to ensure effective partnership working' between children's and adult's teams – an appeal made without incentives, guidance or sanctions is woefully inadequate, in terms of imagination and resources alike, as a response to the yawning gaps in support that exist for parents.

Likewise, the limp admission that 'further work' is needed to help staff use the new Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families, in order to 'ensure that assessments result in appropriate services', completely fails to address the growing evidence of injustice perpetrated against parents with learning difficulties and their children by a child protection process now almost fully geared to policing as opposed to supporting families and a welfare system that is worryingly likely to harm those it is supposed to help. Until we pay as much attention to the destructive effects of system abuse as to the curse of child abuse, parents with learning difficulties will continue to receive rough justice and their children will get a raw deal.

The White Paper has established a principled foundation on which to build for the future. It is evident, however, that parents with learning difficulties present a challenge to this strategic vision by highlighting the uncomfortable gap between the values so clearly set out in the White Paper and the means willed to achieve them.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 presents a major threat to the security of families headed by a parent or parents with learning difficulties.

The new approach to adoption embodied in the Act heralds the biggest overhaul of adoption law in over 25 years. A key aim of the raft of reforms it has introduced is to speed up the adoption process. Social Services departments are being exhorted to see adoption as 'a positive, responsible choice'.

The Government is committed to bring about a 40 per cent increase in the rate of adoptions. Individual councils will be faced with performance targets for the number of adoptions they are expected to achieve. These targets will comprise one of the indicators in the system of Performance Rating that the Government intends to use to reward star performing councils and 'name and shame' the poor ones. A new Adoption and Permanence Taskforce has been set up to work with 'under-performing' local authorities to help them meet their targets.

These measures create a system hungry for adoptable children. They threaten to distort the incentives that drive social workers' decisions about what is in the best interests of children from vulnerable families. The 'looked after' system is full of older children, especially boys, for whom there is a chronic scarcity of prospective adopters.

Hitting targets is more likely given a steady supply of younger, more eligible children. Why work hard and spend money supporting families in need when you can win more resources and avoid being shamed by placing their children for adoption? This calculus of despair is particularly loaded against families headed by a parent or parents with learning difficulties.

Parents with learning difficulties already face a high risk of having their children removed because the odds are stacked against them. The Government's own Social Services Inspectorate has shown how the hold of such parents over their children is weakened by 'a "professional knows best" culture' characterised by insufficient knowledge, poor assessments, an over zealous attitude to risk, a lack of awareness of disability equality issues, fragmented services, and serious shortcomings in service provision.

Freeing up the adoption process, without first tackling these known defects in family support that contribute to children entering the 'looked after' system in the first place, marks a further turn of the screw against parents with learning difficulties. The Government is pumping new funding into better post-adoption supports for adoptive families without first plugging the support gap that undermines the coping abilities of birth families.

Under the new approach to adoption, councils are required to provide a full package of support services, including financial help if appropriate, to adoptive families. Yet too often it is precisely the absence of such supports that triggers the crisis leading to children being removed from their natural parents.

And so we end up where a young mother with learning difficulties, coping alone with three young children under five, in substandard housing on a rough estate, with no support from family and precious little help from the services. She is driven by depression, a lack of respite from the never-ending pressures in her life, into giving up her eldest son, who's running wild for want of a bit of discipline, as the price for holding on to the other two, only for him to be adopted by a middle-class professional couple who immediately qualify for 18 weeks paid adoption leave.

The Adoption and Children Act reflects the greater political clout of adoptive parents as against poor, disadvantaged and disabled parents. Birth families comprising a parent or parents with learning difficulties are least likely to fight for their rights or attract public sympathy for their cause. They are in no position to defend their interests or the interests of their children. The new approach to adoption makes it even more likely that they will lose out.

Page updated

Report abuse