A Case Study of Parental Supports for Parents with Disabilities

Background/Purpose: Over the past several decades, there have been calls for attention to the parental support needs of parents with disabilities, including formal or informal supports that assist parents with disabilities to care for their children (Booth & Booth, 1996; Llewellyn & McConnell, 2002). While the assessment of capabilities of parents with disabilities has gradually received attention from child welfare and disability agencies, there has been much less emphasis on the types of supports that parents might need to assist with or supplement their own parenting. The purpose of the current study was to explore the types of supports that parents with disabilities determine are needed and helpful.

Methods: The study participants included 30 parents with intellectual, physical or sensory of disabilities who had at least one child under the age of 18 in 2010 – 2011 in Midwestern state. A structured interview guide including both closed and open-ended questions elicited information about formal and informal parental supports that participants needed and received, and helpfulness of these supports. Field notes collected by the interviewers supplemented the participants’ responses to the parental support questions. Qualitative data regarding participants’ views of parental supports were interpreted by repeated readings of their responses to the open-ended questions and then coded for themes.

Results: Participants reported a wide range of parental supports needed to assist in their parenting activities. The most commonly identified support included informal supports, parenting classes, housing, child care, respite care, and activities for children. The least identified parental supports included housekeeping assistance, picture reminders of parenting tasks, supportive housing, and co-parenting or a parenting mentor. Correlation analyses between the types of disabilities and support needs revealed that parents with different types of disability had different support needs. For example, there was a positive correlation between parents reporting intellectual or developmental disabilities and needing housing or in-home parent training. A key theme emerging from the qualitative data was that parents strongly preferred informal supports because of the flexibility of supports and the emotional support they received. In receiving informal supports, they felt that most helped by people around them and that they are listened to and accepted. Also, they reported that informal support people could be counted on at any time. Conversely, participants often described formal supports as confusing or overwhelming.

Conclusions and Implications: This study highlights the strong desire for parents with disabilities to receive informal parental supports. The child welfare systems must be aware of the array of needs that parents with disabilities have for parental supports. In the process of assessing a parent with disability for his or her parenting practice, child welfare and disability agencies should be cognizant not only of individual parenting skills, but also the parental supports that include informal supports in addition to formal supports.