{"id":55138,"date":"2018-12-19T15:17:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T20:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=55138"},"modified":"2018-12-19T16:55:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T21:55:20","slug":"brock-prof-works-with-parents-with-intellectual-disabilities-to-keep-families-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2018\/12\/brock-prof-works-with-parents-with-intellectual-disabilities-to-keep-families-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock prof works with parents with intellectual disabilities to keep families together"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the future of a family is at stake, assumptions about who makes a capable parent can have devastating consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Maurice Feldman, Chair of the Department of Applied Disability Studies (ADS), has spent much of his career combating assumptions and stereotypes. \u201cAs a researcher and a clinician, I\u2019ve been working with parents who have learning difficulties, including intellectual disabilities,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feldman is one of the most published researchers in this area and has written the only book on how to administer valid parenting capacity assessments with these parents. His evidence-based Step-by-Step Parenting Program<\/span> is implemented worldwide. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think the issue is insignificant because parents with learning difficulties make up such a small percentage of the Canadian population,\u201d he says. \u201cAlthough they make up only three per cent of the overall population, they account for 25 per cent of Canadian child protection cases.\u201d In such cases, the family can be torn apart, often by a system of well-meaning social service agencies, says Feldman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cParents with learning difficulties typically appear in the media only when something goes wrong or something happens to the child,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an assumption that people with intellectual disabilities can\u2019t be capable parents, so their kids are at high risk of being taken away,\u201d he says. When that happens, Feldman is sometimes asked to do a parenting capacity assessment by the child protection agency or the parents\u2019 lawyers. \u201cSometimes I\u2019m called in by social services when, for example, hospital staff are unwilling to send a new baby home with parents who have intellectual disabilities.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Feldman, accounting for parental health, socioeconomic factors and social supports significantly reduces the risk of adverse child protection outcomes compared to parents without learning difficulties, but does not completely eliminate the increased risk of child removal. \u201cThis finding may be evidence that societal bias against parents with intellectual disabilities is present among child protection workers,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research from the U.S. has shown that \u201cworkers responsible for making decisions about whether or not to remove children are often unaware of existing, evidence-based interventions and therefore are making decisions based on their own assumptions that these parents are incapable of adequately raising children,\u201d says Feldman.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to give the impression that it is always adversarial,\u201d he says. \u201cOften agencies and workers strive to reunite children with parents consistent with existing legislation, but they know the families need but may not get access to interventions that will improve outcomes for the children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Children born to parents with difficulties do not necessarily have learning difficulties themselves but may be at risk for developing problems as they grow, Feldman says. That\u2019s why support networks and positive parenting skills are so important for these families. \u201cResearch shows that evidence-based interventions focused on improving parenting skills benefit the children,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feldman\u2019s now world-renowned Step-by-Step Parenting Program was developed and implemented at Surrey Place in Toronto, where he ran the program for 14 years. After almost 40 years, the Surrey Place program is still going strong. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Feldman\u2019s approach combines elements of applied behaviour analysis and developmental psychology to teach specific parenting skills, one step at a time. His research shows that using the step-by-step approach, parents with learning difficulties can quickly learn to improve their parenting skills with corresponding improvements in the children. For instance, in one randomized control trial, Feldman and his associates showed the Step-by-Step program increased the language development of young children raised by parents with intellectual disabilities by teaching their parents to provide more sensitive, responsive positive interactions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Researching service needs for families with parents who have intellectual disabilities is the focus of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Development grant that Feldman is currently working on with principal investigator David McConnell (University of Alberta) and co-investigators Marjorie Aunos (adjunct faculty with Brock\u2019s ADS) and Laura Pacheco (Director of Parenting Services at Montr\u00e9al West Island Integrated University Health and Social Services Centre). The team is working towards a full SSHRC Partnership grant to design a Canadian national strategy to support these families.<\/span><\/p>\n

Feldman is proud of his work with these families. \u201cI became a scientist-practitioner to increase my impact,\u201d he says. \u201cResearch allows me to reach far more people in need of evidence-based interventions than I would have been able to help if I remained a clinician.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the future of a family is at stake, assumptions about who makes a capable parent can have devastating consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":55139,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,1,4,38],"tags":[7389,244,7390,522,6577,7391,3974,2948],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55138"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55138"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55143,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55138\/revisions\/55143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}