In an age of breaking down barriers and myths about who can adopt children and in the light of Government targets to increase the number of adoptions, where do disabled people stand when it comes to equal treament in the assessment process?
Lisa Cherry-Downes found out.

Picture courtesy of Parents with Disabilities Online. (The child is born to mother shown)

Think of parents and an image that probably does not spring instantly to mind is the picture above.

As a society there is undoubtedly an inbuilt bias against the notion of disabled people having children at all, let alone adopting children.

Social services take children off people who can't look after the children properly because of their disability, don't they.

Well, yes and no.

At a British Agencies for Adoption and Fostering conference last year, disabled parent Michele Wates made an impassioned case for adoption and fostering workers to see past a person's disability to their potential abilities as loving parents.

BAAF is currently seeking new funding to extend a disability project that has been running for the past three years to examine the issues surrounding disability and adoption.

As Michele, a founder the UK support group, the Disabled Parents Network, said: "Disabled people are not expected to become parents."

And evidence of this can range from the blatently obvious to the silent and subtle, she added.

At the obvious end of the scale, parents often tell their disabled children that they cannot expect to become parents.

Partners of disabled people may be warned that if children are born to the relationship, they will have to be both mother and father to them.

And disability is often cited by judges when awarding custody of children to non-disabled parents.

But sometimes the messages are not so clear.

Well-meaning charities can reinforce society's idea that every disabled person is isolated and struggling to cope with life.

And disabled people are rarely presented positively in the media in parenting or other caring roles. Newspaper and magazine stories of the 'tragic mum struggles against the odds' or 'child forced to care for sick mother' variety reinforce the image of disabled people as victims.

Maternity units, mother and baby clinics, mother and toddler groups, schools, cinemas, sports centres often have no wheelchair accessible facilities for parents.

Social service departments have policies and projects supporting 'young carers' but can fail to recognise the support needs of disabled parents.

And sex education at schools for disabled children focuses on contraception rather than parenting.

"A disabled person may pass through childhood and adolescence without anyone ever once mentioning the possibility of them becoming parents or giving them a baby to hold," said Michele, who has written extensively about the right and needs of disabled parents.

"It is essential that these barriers be broken down in order that the particular skills and strengths that disabled people are in a position to bring to their parenting (both as biological and as adoptive parents) can flourish," she added.

And once a disabled person does become a parent, they often feel they have to put on a display of worthy of the title 'supermum' or 'superdad' rather than ask for support and risk losing their child because they are seen as 'not coping'.

Their fear of having their children removed is not without foundation, either.

Disabled parents, often those with learning difficulties or mental health problems, figure highly in the numbers of parents whose children are in care. Government figures show that 'parental ill health' is the third commonest reason for removing a child.

But many of these parents have never had their parenting support needs assessed or addressed, said Michele and even if they do ask for help, it can often reveal huge gaps in services.

It is a chicken and egg situation.

Social services often fail to recognise the needs of disabled parents because disabled people are not expected to become parents in the first place, said Michele.

For disabled people to become adoptive parents the route to parenthood is even harder because on top of the barriers that already exist for disabled biological parents, they have to navigate - like any other would-be adopter - the rigorous and often critical assessment procedure.

And many will be encouraged to take on the hardest to place children such as older children or those with disabilities or special needs.

One prospective disabled adopter told Adoption-net: "When we were going through the matching criteria, the social worker did seem a bit surprised that we did not want to adopt a disabled child. She felt we had lots of experience in this field - and that irritated me."

Many disabled people do, in fact, opt to adopt a disabled child but in doing so, agencies have to recognise issues facing the disabled parent of a disabled child and provide sufficient support, added Michele.

Disabled parents organisations have been concerned at anecdotal evidence over a number of years and from a variety of sources suggesting that disabled adults are less likely to get through the adoption selection process than non-disabled people and, if they do get through, seem to be less likely to be allocated children to adopt.

They are asking for Government research to establish the evidence and reasons for this.

"There has been no research to determine whether applications to adopt by disabled people are less likely to succeed than those of non-disabled people but it is clear that many disabled parents are failing to make it all the way through to adoption," said Michele.

Adoption-net spoke to one disabled person, Charlotte, who has been trying to adopt for several years. She and her able-bodied husband James started off with one authority but found their approach "irritating and slow" and the social workers "disorganised" and "patronising".

So they swapped to another authority which they are happier with and are now undergoing the home study.

Although Charlotte insisted she did not feel her disability had slowed down the process, because of the length of time it took to be allocated a social worker, she did initially wonder if they were at the end of the queue

"Although, this feeling is not based on fact," she added.

"I think the slowness of the whole thing is more a reflection of the completely disorganised way the whole adoption process is carried out. I am not impressed.

"I feel that the assessment could have gone a lot quicker - a lot of the stuff was duplicated and drawn out. I like the social worker we have, but find the waiting around is the worst thing."

Charlotte believes her home study social worker is very positive about her and James adopting and can see that they have thought of all the issues.

But they have been advised to obtain experience of looking after children which they are in the process of doing.

"I find this very irritating but we feel if we don't, that this will count against us at panel," said Charlotte.

"I guess our social worker knows how the panel works and is trying to pre-empt some of their objections," she added.

Michele believes that fact that disabled people are prepared to go through the adoption procedure in itself should be seen by social workers as a sign of their strength of character.

And there is increasing recognition that disabled people - because of the situations they face everyday in life - have many skills that are recognised features of competent parenting - flexibility, adaptability and resourcefulness.

It is a view supported by Charlotte: "We feel that we have thought a lot about the practicalities of caring for a child, espeically since I am in a wheelchair, and this is something I am used to doing in my everyday life.

"My life by the nature of being in a wheelchair has to be planned out, and social services do not seem to understand that."

On top of their practical skills, disabled people also value difference, which, given the possible difficulties facing many children in the care system, could also be seen as valuable attribute in a potential adoptive parent.

Michele added: "In addition we can offer some things that children value - the ability to move at a slower pace and in some cases at a lower level, the need to spend time sitting down rather than rushing about.

Picture courtesy Parents with Disabilities Online

"There's also the right to go to the front of the queue at Disney!" she joked.

Another more general benefit is that a child adopted by a disabled person gets the chance to experience disabled people in a positive light within a loving human relationship, helping to break down society's misconceptions about what disabled people are capable of.

Disabled people who have gone through the selection process have often found themselves having to teach social workers to see disability as a social issue rather than purely as an individual's medical condition, said Michele.

She added: "The assumption is that the greater the degree of a person's impairment the less an individual can do, but this is in fact not the case at all. The access a parent has to support and resources is the critical issue, rather than the extent of their impairment.

"I can illustrate this from my own experience. When my children were small I used to struggle round on crutches in an inaccessible house.

"I gradually got my lifestyle sorted out, started using a powered chair, made my house accessible and eventually even managed to find a vehicle that I can drive from my wheelchair so that, ironically, life has become much less stressful and exhausting as my condition has worsened."

Michele urged adoption social workers to delve into what may be their own unconscious prejudices when looking at the issue of expecting disabled people to adopt special needs children or those considered 'hard to place'.

"Is it because they are more likely to understand those childrens' experience than non-disabled people or because it's considered unfair on a 'normal' child to saddle them with disabled parents?" she asked.

Importantly social workers also needed to question if 'normalisation' was the best goal for a child or if the celebration of difference would be a more positive target, said Michele.

She illustrated her point perfectly with an anecdote of the time she, along with a fellow disabled mother and her adopted daughter who has cerebral palsy, visited a science museum with an interactive display:

"The sign said the idea was to crawl through the electronically activated tunnel without touching the sides; thus making as little noise as possible.

"My friend didn't say to her daughter: 'Don't worry if you can't help making a noise' but turned the whole thing around with joyful subversion, saying: 'OK. Let's see just how much lovely noise you can make as you go through.'

"Her years of experience as a disabled person had taught her to value her daughter's own reality and not one drawn from anybody else's experience.

"Her years as a disabled person had also shown her the value of being able to make a noise, whether the world around invited us to or not."

Useful links:

Disabled Parents Network

Parents with Disabilities Online