Children’s Needs – Parenting Capacity

Children's Needs ? Parenting Capacity

Child abuse: Parental mental illness, learning disability, substance misuse, and domestic violence

2nd edition

Hedy Cleaver Ira Unell

Jane Aldgate

CHILDREN'S NEEDS ? PARENTING CAPACITY

Child abuse: Parental mental illness, learning disability, substance misuse and domestic violence

2nd edition

HEDY CLEAVER, IRA UNELL AND JANE ALDGATE

LONDON: TSO

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Published for the Department for Education under licence from the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

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Printed in the UK by The Stationery Office Limited J2441707 C2.5 09/11 11130

Contents

List of figures and tables

vi

Preface

vii

Acknowledgements

viii

Introduction

1

Research context

1

Legal and policy context

8

Limitations of the research drawn on in this publication

16

Structure of the book

18

PART I: GENERAL ISSUES AFFECTING PARENTING CAPACITY 21

1 Is concern justified? Problems of definition and prevalence

23

Problems with terminology

23

Prevalence

27

Prevalence of parental mental illness: general population studies

28

Prevalence of parental learning disability: general population studies

33

Prevalence of parents with problem drinking or drug misuse: general

population studies

36

Prevalence of domestic violence: general population studies

43

Summary of the evidence for a link between parental disorders and

child abuse

47

To sum up

48

2 How mental illness, learning disability, substance misuse and domestic

violence affect parenting capacity

49

Physical and psychological impact on parents' health and well-being

50

iv

Children's Needs ? Parenting Capacity

Impact on parenting

61

Social consequences

74

To sum up

80

3 Which children are most at risk of suffering significant harm?

85

What constitutes significant harm?

85

Vulnerable children

86

Protective factors

90

To sum up

93

Moving on to explore the impact on children at different stages of

development

95

PART II: ISSUES AFFECTING CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES 97

4 Child development and parents' responses ? children under 5 years 99

Pre-birth to 12 months

99

Pre-birth to 12 months ? the unborn child

99

To sum up

108

Pre-birth to 12 months ? from birth to 12 months

108

To sum up

115

Children aged 1?2 years

116

To sum up

124

Children aged 3?4 years

125

To sum up

134

Identified developmental needs in children under 5 years

135

5 Child development and parents' responses ? middle childhood

137

Children aged 5?10 years

137

To sum up

155

Identified unmet developmental needs in middle childhood

157

Contents

v

6 Child development and parents' responses ? adolescence

159

Children aged 11?15 years

159

To sum up

179

Children aged 16 years and over

180

To sum up

193

Identified unmet developmental needs in adolescence

195

PART III: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND

PRACTICE

197

7 Conclusions

199

8 Implications for policy and practice

201

Early identification and assessment

201

Joint working

204

Flexible time frames

205

Information for children and families

206

Training and educational requirements

207

To sum up

208

Bibliography

211

Index

253

List of figures and tables

Figures Figure 1.1 The Assessment Framework

Tables Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 1.3

Table 4.1

Table 5.1

Table 6.1

Prevalence of mental illness among adults in the general population

Prevalence of mental illness among parents in the general population

Relationship between the rate of recorded parental problems and the level of social work intervention

Proportion of children with identified unmet needs ? children under 5 years

Proportion of children with identified unmet needs ? middle childhood

Proportion of adolescents with identified unmet needs

Preface

It is probably true to say that, for most people, childhood is a mixed experience where periods of sadness and loss are balanced with moments of happiness and achievement. Such complexity, however, is rarely represented in the literature of childhood. Indeed, much of the written word in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries depicts childhood in one of two contrasting ways. For example, A.A. Milne's poem `In the Dark', first published in 1927, (Milne 1971) shows childhood as a golden era where children are loved and nurtured by caring parents. It is a time characterised by innocence, unqualified parental love, irresponsibility, peer friendships and a thirst for adventure and knowledge.

I've had my supper, And had my supper, And HAD my supper and all; I've heard the story Of Cinderella, And how she went to the ball; I've cleaned my teeth, And I've said my prayers, And I've cleaned and said them right; And they've all of them been And kissed me lots, They've all of them said `Good-night.' But never far away is the alternative experience, typified by parental desertion, illness, isolation and poverty. James Whitcomb Riley (1920), who penned uplifting poems of perhaps questionable quality for children during the 1890s, paints a much bleaker picture in his poem `The Happy Little Cripple'. I'm thist a little cripple boy, an' never goin' to grow An' get a great big man at all! ? `cause Aunty told me so. When I was thist a baby onc't, I falled out of the bed An' got "The Curv'ture of the Spine" ? `at's what the Doctor said. I never had no Mother nen ? fer my Pa runned away An' dassn't come back here no more ? `cause he was drunk one day An' stobbed a man in thish-ere town, an' couldn't pay his fine! An' nen my Ma she died ? an' I got "Curv'ture of the Spine!"

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