‘There’s a lot of discrimination’: UK training scheme aims to help social workers dealing with disabled parents

Jennifer Brown, a disabled parent whose child was taken from her care, is working with the Birmingham charity CASBA to help train social workers. Photograph: Andrew Fox/The Guardian

“It feels like they don’t listen to your voice. It’s really frustrating. They see us as parents with a disability, they don’t see past that,” said Jennifer Brown, as she reflected on her dealings with social services over the past decade. Brown, 39, has a learning disability and cerebral palsy and she believes this was part of the reason why her son was removed from her care and given to relatives of the child’s father soon after he was born.

Research suggests between 40% and 60% of parents with a learning disability have had their children removed due to being assessed as unable to provide an adequate standard of parenting, and they are over-represented in the child protection system.