The Substituted Parenting programme was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and supported by the President of the Family Division of Cafcass.
It is not clear how the use of the term ‘substituted parenting’ developed. Despite this, the term increasingly appears in family court judgments involving parents with a learning disability or learning difficulty as the reason for removing children from their family.
Published court judgments show no definition of the term or evidence of the perceived risk, or exploration of the options to reduce the risk.
When children are being removed from their families, it is important to be able to scrutinise the arguments against providing support to ensure they are not based on cost, prejudice or other inappropriate factors.
Without the ability to do so, removal of children from parents with learning disabilities and learning difficulties risks becoming a discriminatory blanket policy.
This programme set out to develop a common understanding of the meaning and use of the term ‘substituted parenting’ and to support parents with learning disabilities and learning difficulties to understand the term, the associated risks, and how to mitigate them.
*The Substituted Parenting programme uses the term LD as an umbrella term to include people with a diagnosed learning disability as well as those with a milder impairment with similar parenting needs.
What is 'substituted parenting'?
This video explains what substituted parenting is, the risks it presents to children and their parents, and what can be done to prevent it from happening.
Substituted parenting is a term used in the family courts and can lead to children being removed from learning disabled parents. This can be an alienating experience where professionals take over the parents' role. In some circumstances, action through the courts citing substituted parenting as the factor for removal of children from their disabled parents may be discriminatory.
Substituted parenting can be avoided when professionals support parents to build and develop their parenting skills, and some people with a learning disability may need support to adapt their parenting approach as the child grows up and their needs change.
Working effectively with parents involves supporting parents to understand:
- what a professional's role is
- what their professional worries about the child are
- what the parent will need to do to address these worries to ensure the child is safe and well
Parents need:
- scaffolding so they are able to learn and develop the skills they need to successfully parent
- professionals to ask how they would like to be supported and to review how the support is going as their parenting skills develop
- an advocate and a network of support that includes friends and family, together with professionals from health, social care, and community services
- the right support, at the right time, in the right way.
Parents with learning disabilities or learning difficulties are over-represented in the family courts and are more than twice as likely to have their children removed, rather than supported to remain at home.
This policy briefing summarises research by the Working Together With Parents Network into substituted parenting in the family courts, Substituted parenting: What does this mean for parents with learning difficulties in the family court context?
The project’s overall aim was to develop a common understanding of the meaning and use of the term 'substituted parenting' by legal and social work professionals.
*This publication uses the term LD as an umbrella term to include people with a diagnosed learning disability as well as those with a milder impairment with similar parenting needs.