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Families torn apart
Families torn apart Parents with learning
difficulties are having their children taken into care because officials
say they are too intellectually slow to cope, an ITV News investigation
has found. Full
News Video
In one case, a mother with mild learning difficulties said her two children had been taken away even though they had never been harmed and lived in a clean and tidy house described as a loving home by community care workers. Her husband has held down a steady job for 20 years and the family enjoys the support of relatives but still they face the prospect of losing their son and daughter forever. The mother, who cannot be named, said: "They just thought I was slow really. They sort of want me to be what they want me to be really. "I know they expect you to be perfect but I think everyone's the same - we all find to difficult to be a mum. "It's not easy the first year after having a baby." The family's heartbreaking experience does not appear to be an isolated case. Recent research into UK family court proceedings involving parents with an intellectual disability found that 15 per cent of care applications involved a parent with a learning difficulty. Parents with such disabilities and their children feature in care cases 60 times more than would be expected from their numbers in the population. The study also showed that 75 per cent of children whose parents had a learning difficulty were taken away from the family and 40 per cent of them were put up for adoption. Campaigners say such parents need more support rather than having their children taken away. The council involved in the couple's case said it had to rely on the courts, in possession of all the facts, to make the right decision in the best interests of the child. A decision on whether the family will be parted forever - and the children adopted - could come as soon as next month |
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