A Global Scoping Review of Research on Parents with Disabilities Involvement in the Child Protection System

Background and Purpose: There is growing international recognition that parents with disabilities are involved in the child protection system at alarming rates. As more researchers are interested in this field, it is for them to understand the scope of the scientific literature to help guide their selection of research topics, designs, methods, and perspectives. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the global research literature addressing parents with disabilities involvement with child protection, including the global publication trends and foci of the research studies, the aspects of child protection that studies address, and the voices that are centered in the studies.

Methods: Our team used a modified version of Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five-stage framework for scoping reviews, focusing solely on research articles published in peer reviewed journals. We initially searched four electronic databases (PubMed, Psych Info, Social Service, and Scopus) employing broad search terms to cast a wide net of articles published through May 2023. We initially retrieved 10,471 articles and managed articles with Rayyan.ai. We selected 135 articles for study inclusion through a several stage process, which included adding others through reviews of references and Google Scholar. We charted the articles based on year of publication, location of study, discipline, type of parental disability, research methods used, aspect of child protection studies, and whose voice was centered in the studies.

Results: We found a sharp rise in peer-reviewed research publications investigating the involvement of parents with disabilities in the child protection system in the last several decades, with about two-thirds (68.9%) published since 2010. The articles described studies conducted in 17 countries, with four-fifths (83.0%) in the USA, the UK, Australia, Canada and Sweden. Articles were primarily published in journals focused on disability, child welfare, or social work. Four-fifths (81.4%) focused on parents with intellectual or developmental disabilities either separately or in combination with other types of disabilities, with few focusing on parents with physical or sensory disabilities. One-third (33.3%) studied mothers with disabilities, with the rest including all parents. The four most common research designs were secondary analysis of administrative records; interviews with parents, professionals or advocates; case record reviews; or court record reviews. Researchers examined a wide range of themes, with prevalence, out-of-home care, case disposition, and specific child welfare services being most common. Less than one-third (29.6%) of the studies used data that came directly from parents with disabilities.

Conclusions and Implications: While this scoping study shows increased global research interest in the involvement of parents with disabilities in child protection, it also reveals significant gaps in the literature. There is a need for more research on the involvement of parents with physical and sensory disabilities, more research outside of North America, Australia, the UK, and Sweden, more research into where bias occurs in child welfare processes, and more research on accessible child protection services and tailored interventions for working with parents. Further, there is a need for more studies centering the voices of parents with disabilities, especially fathers.