Care assessments concerning involuntary removal of children from intellectually disabled parents

Abstract

This study set out to analyse how parenting and the needs of the children are assessed by social authorities and courts in families where one or both parents have an intellectual disability (ID). The texts of child welfare investigations and court judgments in 16 cases of care orders concerning parents (30) with IDs and their children (29) in two counties in Sweden were analysed by a hermeneutic case study. The study shows that even though many of the children are described as already harmed by neglect, clear assessments of care needs are not presented and it is uncertain which of the children's needs a placement in a family home is assumed to satisfy. The conclusion of the article is that, even though no direct discrimination can be established, the particular individual and structural difficulties of the families' life circumstances are not taken into consideration. This can be seen as a discriminatory practice.

Keywords::

• the Care of Young Persons (Special Provisions) Act
• care assessment
• care order
• intellectually disabled parents
• prognosis
• risk assessment

Funding

This work was supported by the Foundation Sävstaholm and by the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundation.

Notes

^1. The principles for BBIC (Barns behov i centrum, ‘Children’s needs in the centre') are described by the National Board of Health and Welfare – Socialstyrelsen, 2006. According to BBIC, children's needs in different spheres must be clarified and related to the parents' caring ability and to factors in the family and the environment. Accounts of the family and the environment in the investigations studied are integrated with descriptions of ‘the child’s needs' or ‘the parents’ caring ability'.

^2. Contact family is a special intervention for supporting children in families with social problems. The child receives an ‘extra family’ with whom he or she spends limited periods, like one or two weekends every month, and by sharing this ‘extra family's’ everyday life the child might become better able to handle everyday life in the biological family.