Parents with Learning Disabilities: An Audit of Referrals made to a Learning Disability Team

Annual increases in the number of parenting referrals made to a learning disability team over a ten‐year period led to this audit. The increase in the number of these referrals highlights a growing need for services to support parents with learning disabilities, to ensure that children remain in the family home wherever possible. Previous research has identified several factors that may reduce a learning‐disabled parent's ability to parent his or her children effectively, including social and familial issues. This audit aimed to examine the relationship between parents' demographics and children's outcomes, specifically whether children were removed from the family home. Information was gathered from the files of both the learning disability team and social services, and involved all parenting referrals made to this team between 1994 and 2003. The findings of this audit suggest that the earlier services can become involved with parents, the better the outcomes for their children will be. If services do not become involved early on, the children are more likely to have developmental problems, and once child protection proceedings have begun there is a very high likelihood that children will be removed from the family home.