Introduction

This chapter discusses the findings of our study in relation to the support available to disabled parents. It looks at the way in which both formal and informal sources of support were differentially available to the families in our study, as well as the different ways in which formal and informal sources of support work together to promote or inhibit parenting choices.

It is our argument that the support ‘needs’ of disabled parents – an adequate income, secure and accessible housing, a network of informal support, access to leisure facilities, among other things – are intrinsically no different to those of non-disabled parents. However, disabled parents often find it harder to access these sources of support, for reasons such as inaccessible environments, negative attitudes and structural disadvantage. Such barriers must be removed so that disabled people can parent with greater control and independence.

We also argue, however, that the exclusion and marginalisation that disabled parents often face cannot be understood without an awareness of other broader forms of disadvantage and social exclusion, such as poverty and racism. In particular, the way in which access to parenting roles for disabled people intersects with the way in which parenting is differentially constructed for mothers and fathers, and with other structural inequalities closely associated with gender, is of great importance. The chapter ends by taking a look at the implications of our arguments for the provision of services to disabled parents.

It is quite artificial to distinguish between the support available to disabled people in general, and that available to them specifically as disabled parents.When parents in our study talked about the lack of service coordination and responsiveness, especially in the period immediately following the onset of impairments, they referred to the effects in terms of the impact both on themselves as individuals as well as on the family as a whole. Indeed, while the focus of our interviews was on parenting, respondents very often talked about barriers to support applicable to disabled people more generally – issues around access to services and facilities, difficulties in getting information in accessible formats, financial barriers, and so on. Our approach has been to focus, wherever possible, on access to support with parenting. However, it has not always been possible, or indeed even desirable, to separate this from the broader context of social exclusion that faces disabled people.