Working Together with Parents Network

This is a free network for professionals working with parents with learning disabilities and their children.  The network provides professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds with up-to-date information on policy and practice as well as access to support from a regional group and email discussions.  There are 4 regional practitioner networks England and national networks in Wales and Scotland. See wtpn.co.uk for more details.

Resources for social workers project 

Parents with learning difficulties (LD) are over-represented in the child protection system and Care Proceedings (Burch 2019). Recent research suggests that a third of parents whose child protection case went to court had learning difficulties, with 80% of these parents having their children removed from their care (Burch et al., forthcoming, 2024).  Yet, our recent research (Tarleton and Tilbury, 2023; Tarleton and MacIntyre, ongoing) suggests that social workers have little knowledge about working with this group of parents.  Social workers and social work managers we have spoken to report that they do not feel equipped to work with parents with LD, they say they lack the confidence, skills, and expertise needed and require training. This aligns with the findings from many previous studies which have also found that social workers often have negative stereotypes about parents’ lack of ability and assume they will not parent well (McConnell and Llewellyn, 2002; Jones, 2013; Tefre, 2017; Pytlona and Kroese, 2021).   

Aim of the impact project 

We will co-produce with our partners and project stakeholder groups (parents with LD and social workers/social work educators) a range of easy access training resources, for all social workers who come into contact with parents with LD and their children, which will:  

1. improve social workers’ understanding of and knowledge about parents with learning difficulties 

1. develop their skills in engaging with and supporting parents in a respectful and ethical way   

1. enable them to incorporate the relevant GPG in their practice  

1. contribute to the continuing professional development of the social work profession 

Partners, steering group and stakeholder groups 

Steering group 

We will establish a steering group involving our partners and parent support organisations that will meet at least monthly. We already have established relationships with our partners/parent support organisations.   Members will include: Gillian MacIntyre (CI) from the University of Strathclyde, Lecturers from Bristol MSc in Social Work programme in the School for Policy Studies (4 members of the team have already volunteered), RiP, advocates (paid supporters) from Speakup Self Advocacy and Skills for People. 

Stakeholder groups 

We will work closely with two stakeholder groups over a 6 month period to develop, refine and widely disseminate the training materials. 

1. Social work professionals and educators.  We will invite members of our current advisory group to become key members of our stakeholder group. This group includes academics with relevant expertise, members of ADASS (Association of Directors of Adult Services) and BASW as well as frontline social workers and managers.  We will also invite representatives from Social Work England and Wales, Social Work Scotland,  ADCS (Children’s services) and Bristol University social work students to join the group. 

1. Parents with LD from Skills for People in Newcastle and SpeakUp Self advocacy from Rotherham and an independent autistic mother with mild LD, who has theatre experience, with whom we already have well-established relationships will form our Parent stakeholder group.  We expect 6 or 7 parents from each group to contribute. These expert parents are clear that social workers need training to work with them.  These parents already made a film with us which introduced the concept of ‘substituted parenting’ to parents and professionals which provides an example of positive and negative practice (Substituted Parenting | School for Policy Studies | University of Bristol).  These parent advisors asked that we apply for funding to train social workers and have been involved in the planning of this project. 

Coproduced resources 

Together with our parent and professional stakeholder groups, we will develop:    

• 4 mini-training films: 2 films around 3 minutes in length, in an interview format, one with a professional talking about positive practice and one with a parent explaining what they would like social workers to do. 2 films, around 4 minutes long, illustrating positive practice acted by members of our parent stakeholder group.  Short videos can more easily be woven into team training and disseminated via social media while not being too time-consuming to view. The actual costs of filming will be covered by underspend from Tarleton and MacIntyre’s current project. 

• 4 -6 brief, easily updated, narrated PowerPoint video explainers. These will be informed by the findings from our current research and will include: examples of positive practice including easy communication and case study examples, law and policy, multi-agency working.  These would also challenge negative assumptions and expectations. The provision of this material in a narrated PowerPoint format will help to ensure that the material can be easily updated as legislation, policy and practice changes over time.  

• Reflective tool that will guide practitioners through a series of questions through which they can reflect on their own practice.  There will also be guidance to facilitate peer reflection and feedback, in line with the professional development requirements of the Social Work regulators.   

The resources will be made available on a Bristolblogs website that will also include: GPG documents for England, Wales and Scotland and examples of easy read information, joint working protocols, etc. 

Parents with learning difficulties (LD) are over-represented in the child protection system and Care Proceedings (Burch 2019). Recent research suggests that a third of parents whose child protection case went to court had learning difficulties, with 80% of these parents having their children removed from their care (Burch et al., forthcoming, 2024).  Yet, our recent research (Tarleton and Tilbury, 2023; Tarleton and MacIntyre, ongoing) suggests that social workers have little knowledge about working with this group of parents.  Social workers and social work managers we have spoken to report that they do not feel equipped to work with parents with LD, they say they lack the confidence, skills, and expertise needed and require training. This aligns with the findings from many previous studies which have also found that social workers often have negative stereotypes about parents’ lack of ability and assume they will not parent well (McConnell and Llewellyn, 2002; Jones, 2013; Tefre, 2017; Pytlona and Kroese, 2021).   

Aim of the impact project 

We will co-produce with our partners and project stakeholder groups (parents with LD and social workers/social work educators) a range of easy access training resources, for all social workers who come into contact with parents with LD and their children, which will:  

1. improve social workers’ understanding of and knowledge about parents with learning difficulties 

1. develop their skills in engaging with and supporting parents in a respectful and ethical way   
2. enable them to incorporate the relevant GPG in their practice  

Coproduced resources 

Together with our parent and professional stakeholder groups, we will develop:    

• 4 mini-training films: 2 films around 3 minutes in length, in an interview format, one with a professional talking about positive practice and one with a parent explaining what they would like social workers to do. 2 films, around 4 minutes long, illustrating positive practice acted by members of our parent stakeholder group.  Short videos can more easily be woven into team training and disseminated via social media while not being too time-consuming to view. The actual costs of filming will be covered by underspend from Tarleton and MacIntyre’s current project. 

• 4 -6 brief, easily updated, narrated PowerPoint video explainers. These will be informed by the findings from our current research and will include: examples of positive practice including easy communication and case study examples, law and policy, multi-agency working.  These would also challenge negative assumptions and expectations. The provision of this material in a narrated PowerPoint format will help to ensure that the material can be easily updated as legislation, policy and practice changes over time.  

• Reflective tool that will guide practitioners through a series of questions through which they can reflect on their own practice.  There will also be guidance to facilitate peer reflection and feedback, in line with the professional development requirements of the Social Work regulators.   

The resources will be made available on a Bristolblogs website that will also include: GPG documents for England, Wales and Scotland and examples of easy read information, joint working protocols, etc. 

How do Adult and Learning Disability social workers engage with parents with learning disabilities?  

Parents with learning disabilities (LD) often require support to ensure their children’s wellbeing. Parents who have a diagnosed learning disability are eligible for support from a Learning Disability team. They are also entitled to support under the Care Act (2014) from Adult Services alongside parents who have a milder intellectual impairment and/ or no formally diagnosed learning disability.   

 These parents are often over-represented in the Child Protection System and are disproportionately likely to have their children removed from their care. Literature focusing on children’s social workers’ response to these parents indicates that they find working with them difficult and that they are concerned about their lack of knowledge about parents’ needs, a lack of appropriate services and communication between workers/services.   There is no specific literature that focuses on Adult and LD social workers’ response to these parents. It is not known if parents are provided with support by Adult Services or if, when and how LD teams work with parents with diagnosed LD.     

This research aims to investigate how Adult and LD social workers identify and engage with these parents and if, how and when they provide them with support.     

In five Local Authorities (LA) in England, we:   

• Analysed LA Policies to understand how practitioners are expected to respond to parents.  
• Interviewed  managers from the LD team and Adult  Services, a commissioner and other key stakeholders (25).  We discusse how parents with LD are identified, responded to and referred between services and how their local policies say these parents should be supported. 
• Carried out focus group interviews, in each area, with groups of:  

• Adult social workers  
• Learning Disability social workers  
• Children's social workers

• The professionals discussed vignettes (fictional short stories) to compare their responses to a vulnerable parent (without LD), a parent who has a diagnosed LD, and a parent suspected of having a milder/borderline learning disability to investigate if workers have different responses to parents with and without LD or different ‘levels’ of learning disabilities. They were also be asked how they think other professionals ‘see’ these parents and respond to them, how they work with other professionals and how policies guide their response. 
• Carried interviews with 4 parents, including those with and without a diagnosis, which will focus on how Adult and LD social workers have engaged with them.  

We were guided by a parents from Speakup Self Advocacy (a support/advocacy group of parents with LDs) and a professional advisory group and the research was undertaken collaboration with the organisation Research in Practice. 

Substituted parenting: What does this mean in the family court context?

This project  investigated the concept of 'substituted parenting' and what it means in the family court context.

Parents with learning disabilities (LD) are legally entitled to support from statutory services. Long-term support may be needed to keep some families together and to help parents raise their children safely. However, while courts are confirming the right to parental support, a shift in thinking about that support seems to be emerging.

The term ‘substituted parenting’ is being used by local authorities when they believe the parental support needed is excessive. They assert that the level of support is detrimental for children as it confuses them as to who the parent is.

It was unclear how the use of the term developed and there is no clear guidance on what the courts understand by the term. There is no research on this issue or on the potential for support being labelled ‘substituted parenting’ becoming a discriminatory policy based on cost, prejudice, or other inappropriate factors.

The project’s overall aim was to build consensus about the term ‘substituted parenting’ and how it is used and understood by legal and social work professionals and parents with LD, with a view to ensuring that policies and practices are transparent and fair – in the interests, ultimately, of the children’s welfare.  However, after undertaking the research, this aim was felt to be inappropriate.  The main finding from the project was that the term 'substituted parenting' was used in a very negative way with little analysis of parents' actual situations. The main recommendation from the project was that the term should not be used in the family court.

The research was guided by professionals and parents’ advisory groups and interviews will be conducted with a range of legal professionals.  Focus groups were undertaken with parents. 

Outputs from the project include:

A short film 

easy read,

short report

executuve summary

template for analysing risks of a high level of support for use in Court 

You can also find out the outputs here: Substituted Parenting | School for Policy Studies | University of Bristol

Getting things changed project - Beth led a strand of work on Successful practices in supporting parents with learning difficulties in this unique project.  Getting Things Changed (Tackling Disabling Practices: Co-production and Change) was a three year research study funded by the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) in the UK. The project was completed in 2018.  http://www.bristol.ac.uk/sps/gettingthingschanged/

Evaluation of the Parent Pioneers/Mellow Futures projects.

Mellow Futures is a programme of ante antal and postnatal support for mothers with learning difficulties.  The programme enables mothers with learning difficulties to attend Mellow Bumps (an antenatal programme) and Mellow Babies (post-natal parenting programme) while also being supported by a volunteer mentor.  In England, this programme is also known as Parent Pioneers.

Beth was the sole evaluator of the Parent Pioneers Project in England which was piloted in two sites.  With support form Raq Ibrahim, Mellow Parenting Evaluations Assistant, Beth  evaluated the piloting of this programme in 4 sites in Scotland.

Evaluation of the Valuing Parent Support Service.  This evaluation was of a specialist support services for parents wtih learning difficulties in Medway.  The project was innovative and jointly funded by Adults and Children's services and was shown to be having a positive impact on the outcomes for the children in the families.

Methoidst Chaplaincy Development Project evaluation using the Mug of Tea Stories methodology.

The current stage of the project (August 2016 - July 2019) is focusing on 'Strategic change'.  We are aiming to ensure that policy and practice respects parents and children's rights while supporting parents to fulfill their responsibilities to their children.

This evaluation of two local voluntary chaplaincys and the Methodist Chaplaincy Development Project was undertaken with Sue Porter.  It developed a narrative evaluation method called 'Mug of Tea stories' in which stories showing the impact of the Chaplaincy/CDP were told in the length of time it takes to drink a mug of tea.  This methodology was shown to provide in-depth understanding of the significance of these projects and to be useful for the evaluation of a wide range of church projects.

Beth has a long-term interest in easy information for adults with learning difficulties.  Prior to her current focus on research around positive support for parents with learning difficulties, Beth has undertaken work in a wide range of areas relating to service provision for adults with learning difficulties and disabled children.  These include transition, supported housing, short breaks for disabled children.