Beth Tarleton

Sinking or Swimming? Supporting Parents with Learning Disabilities and their Children

According to government policy, parents with learning disabilities should be provided with the support that they need to bring up their children successfully. In practice, however, their risk of having their children removed from them is high. This article reports on findings from a study designed to identify and map positive practice in supporting parents with learning disabilities and their children. It reviews the barriers confronting adults with learning disabilities who want to have and look after their children. It also describes a range of examples of positive practice, demonstrated by professionals and supporters of different backgrounds across the UK, aimed at helping adults with learning disabilities to parent successfully so that they can keep their children with them. It concludes with a discussion of what is needed to facilitate the spread of such examples of positive practice in the future.

Expanding the Engagement Model: The Role of the Specialist Advocate in Supporting Parents With Learning Disabilities in Child Protection Proceedings

The quality of the relationship between parents and professionals, during the child protection process, is key to ensuring the welfare of the children involved. This article discusses the role of the specialist crisis advocate when supporting parents with learning disabilities during the child protection process. It provides an insight into the hostile environment of child protection, as discussed by the child protection professionals, and the role of the advocate as a facilitator of positive engagement between the parents and professionals and in supporting improvements in practice.

Understanding disabling barriers: a fruitful partnership between Disability Studies and social practices?

Abstract Disabled people are regularly denied their human rights, since policies and laws are hard to translate literally into practice. This article aims to make connections between social practice theories and Disability Studies, in order to understand the problems faced by disabled people, using different methods to look in detail at how practices are shaped and how disabled people get excluded. Disabled people are active agents in making change, both informally on an everyday basis and through formal actions. Thus we also suggest that the insights of disabled people could bring a fresh perspective to social practice theories, by troubling the taken-for-granted in our everyday lives.

Committed to Caring: Family-Based Short-Break Carers' Views of Their Role

Short-break carers are short-term foster carers who provide regular care, often one weekend a month, for disabled children. Beth Tarleton reports on a study of 53 short-break carers offering short breaks for children with high support needs. The research found that short-break carers provided short breaks because they enjoyed it and developed real relationships with the children, but that the way in which they were recruited, assessed, trained, paid and supported was often influenced by a lack of staff time and resources, and a lack of clarity regarding their role.

Supported living through Supporting People: the experiences of people with learning disabilities

This article reports the findings of research which examined the impact that the Supporting People programme has had on housing and support for adults with learning disabilities. The issue was explored from the perspectives of local Supporting People teams, commissioners and providers of specialist learning disability social care services, and people with learning disabilities themselves.