Parents with learning difficulties lose fight against son’s adoption

Specialist family lawyers have raised fears about parents with learning difficulties being held to a “different and more onerous” standard of parenting.

Their concerns have emerged in a senior family court judge’s ruling on a case involving a boy with “complex special needs” whose parents also have learning difficulties.

Social workers said the four-year-old boy required “better than good enough parenting”, and argued that he should be placed for adoption.

But a barrister heading a legal team representing the boy’s father argued a “better than good enough” requirement was “circular and dangerous”.

Deirdre Fottrell QC suggested such thinking could lead to parents with learning difficulties being excluded from parenting a child who also had learning difficulties.

She said human rights legislation imposed an obligation on local authorities to provide support needed to allow a child to stay with their parents.

Judge Sir James Munby decided that the boy should be placed for adoption after concluding there were “very real and worrying concerns” about his parents’ ability to care for him.

But Sir James – the president of the Family Division of the High Court (pictured) and the most senior family court judge in England and Wales – said it was not his “task” to find a “better family” for the boy if his parents, with support, could provide “good enough parenting”.

He said he had to be “vigilant” not to “countenance social engineering”.

The judge had analysed the case at a private family court hearing in Swindon, Wiltshire.

He said the couple and their son could not be identified but said the local authority involved was Swindon Borough Council.

“(Ms Fottrell) challenges the assertion that (the boy) needs better than good enough parenting: it is, she says, circular and dangerous and runs the risk of a parent with learning difficulties being held to a different and more onerous standard,” said Sir James in his ruling.

“It would, she suggests, exclude a parent with learning difficulties who requires support from being able to parent their child if the child also has learning difficulties.”

He added: “It is not my task to find a ‘better’ family for (the boy) if, in truth, his parents, with proper support and assistance, can provide him with good enough parenting. I must be vigilant not to countenance social engineering.”

Disability charity Scope said disabled parents could be stigmatised.

“Children of disabled parents – and in particular learning disabled parents – are some of the most likely to be placed in care,” said Beth Grossman, head of policy at Scope.

“These cases are always very complex and a child’s welfare should always come first.

“However we know that many disabled parents face social stigma and negative attitudes, particularly when it comes to their ability to be parents.

“At the same time, sadly too few disabled people receive any social care support whatsoever. And of those that do, one in four told us they don’t receive enough support to be parents.

“We need to make sure the system gives disabled parents the support that they need.”

Sir James said the case was the “most difficult and unusual” care case he had had.

The boy’s mother was on the “borderline of a mild learning disability” and his father had a “more significant cognitive impairment”, the judge said.

Specialists concluded that the boy’s father lacked the mental capacity to litigate and the Office of the Official Solicitor, which provides help to mentally ill people involved in court cases, was part of the legal team representing him.

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