Written evidence (CFA0023)

HOUSE OF LORDS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT 2014 SELECT COMMITTEE INQURY

I am a Disabled parent who has successfully (with my husband) brought up 3 children. I am a psychology graduate with a Masters in Educational Research where I specialised in looking how educational policy varied throughout the different Nations within the EU. When I became pregnant I was soon made aware how poorly equipped hospitals were for disabled parents and equally how little knowledge there was re how disabled parents coped or what equipment they might need to help. I had to bring in my own equipment to Labour Ward and had to struggle with getting transport to clinics and finding comfortable positions to be scanned etc. I found myself working with other disabled parents through National Childbirth Trust and our conversations were always centred round lack of any training for Midwifes, Social Services and lack of information on possible equipment that would help. It was assumed I think that disabled parents would just employ someone else to do the work. How we would afford someone was never explained as home help was not provided to help with children. As children grew up I was aware that the idea of being Disabled and a carer was foreign to everyone including politicians. I found myself joining up with *** pushing for the right to attend my children’s parent’s evenings. With others from disability group we took it to the minister of education and the minister for disability that disabled parents should have the same parental rights as other parents. I wish I could say that we won all that battle but we didn’t. Many disabled parents had had children ripped away from them as soon as they were born and no assessment ever made as to whether the parents could cope. It seems to me that the law regarding family courts has major problems when it comes to giving Disabled parents a fair hearing and this is not just based on the stories from other disabled parents and my own experiences but on what happened more recently to my disabled niece.

I am worried that if social workers and court advisers have an unrealistic view or biased view of a disabled parent the disabled parents has only 6 weeks to find alternative experts to argue against any opinion, and the idea of speeding up adoption would make that even more problematic. In my niece’s case she was in an abusive relationship and she took her partner to court for assault where he was convicted. Despite social workers regularly visiting her they failed to query the first degree burns she sustained previously. They claimed her first child was not talking due to lack of stimulation and because mother was failing to pick up signals due to her poor eyesight despite the fact that the child had been attending a council run nursery since she has been 18months old. Although a later diagnosis proved the child was Autistic the social workers assessment still stood. After she was assaulted in front of a social worker and she pressed charges the mother was moved with her two small children some miles away from her familiar environment to a mother and baby unit that was not designed for a disabled parent or for a lively 4-year-old child. Safety locks were inadequate and no allowance was made for the mother’s disability, or the fact that she had help with cleaning in the family home. No assessment was made of the possible traumatic stress the mother and children could be suffering from. The mother was found to be suffering from traumatic stress but had to find help and support herself. To the best of my knowledge no assessment of the impact on the children has ever been made.

The whole weight of reports was about the mother’s disability and how unsafe she was deemed to be despite there being no evidence that her children had ever been in any danger in her care. The court decision was made to give custody to the abusive partners aunt instead of to the mother and her father. There never seemed to have been any effort made to keep the children with their mother, or seriously regard that as a possibility.

I have yet to find any social workers department that even mentions the possibility of a disabled parent, let alone have any policy on it. Likewise, courts or any official body you care to mention. It is as if we are invisible irrelevant. How many children are being removed from loving care of a disabled parent based on that lack of understanding?

April 2022