Advocacy for parents with learning difficulties: developing advocacy support

Wendy Booth and Tim Booth

For most parents with learning difficulties, family life is constantly under threat yet adequate support services geared to their needs are almost non-existent.

This report describes the work of Parents Together, a pioneering action research project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which set out to support parents in ways that were non-stigmatising, non-intrusive, and responsive to their own experience.

Based on an explicit model of parenting and social support, Parents Together used an advocacy approach to challenge discriminatory views of parents' competence and lighten the load on families by reducing the environmental pressures that undermined them.

This report combines a full account and evaluation of the project with detailed practice guidance, illustrating the variety of roles that compromise the advocacy task, and the difficulties and compromises they bring. It will serve as an important source book of practical advice for people working with parents who have learning difficulties and for all practitioners seeking work in partnership with families.

ISBN 1 900600 80 3

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