A family at risk: multiple perspectives on parenting and child protection

Wendy Booth and Tim Booth

British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 32(1), 2004, pp. 9-15.

Parents with learning difficulties face a high risk of losing their children. This fact holds in all countries with a well-developed child protection system. International research shows rates for the removal of children from such families varying from study to study and country to country in a range between 30 and 80%. In the UK, the evidence suggests that 40–60% of children are taken into alternative care.

These bare facts reveal nothing of the process that generates them. This paper looks at how one family came to be counted among these statistics. Using material drawn from court files, social worker statements, expert reports and personal interviews, it documents the conflicting accounts from which a dominant story of parenting failure was finally translated into one of success.