Introduction

This book began with a discussion of the invisibility of disabled parents in mainstream policy and practice concerning parenting and family support. This invisibility is sustained and reinforced by the common assumption that parents are – or, at least, should be – non-disabled. We hope this book, then, by sustaining throughout a focus on disabled parents, has contributed to the process of addressing this invisibility.

Our study has been concerned with the promotion and realisation of the equal opportunities of disabled people to establish families, and care for children. In contrast to much current research, furthermore, it has not been about the search for negative outcomes in children, nor for pathological failings in disabled people. We hope the result is a significant contribution to what is an exciting period in the development of a disabled parents’ movement in the UK, and to a greater awareness on the part of policy makers and practitioners about the importance of parenting responsibilities for many disabled people.

There are limits, however, to our study. In particular, research with a larger sample is required so that data with greater explanatory power can be collected. However, a purely quantitative approach is inadequate, given the many complex and interacting factors that structure the environment in which disabled people parent. The quantitative data presented throughout this book stand, we argue, as a springboard for subsequent research, since they point to important factors in structuring the experience of disabled parents.

Our study has not been about service users, although many parents in our sample were using one or more of a variety of healthcare and social care services. In a sense, this is a weakness of our research: we have not been able to focus in greater depth, consequently, on the way in which a particular service (for instance, child and adult social-work teams) responds to the parenting of disabled people. However, in our defence, carrying out research with a group of people defined only by their status as disabled parents as we have done, and not by their receipt of a particular service, has many advantages. Firstly, it avoids a service-led approach. Secondly, it allows us to look at parenting and disability in a much more ‘bottom-up’ and ‘normative’ way. That is, it allows us to look at the parenting experience of a group of disabled people as it really is, and not filtered through administrative and welfare categories.