Supporting Parents with Learning Disabilities

This course considers both the needs of children with parents with learning disabilities and the needs of the parents with learning disabilities for appropriate help and support.

Supporting Parents with Learning Disabilities recognises these competing needs and helps identify ways to assess and develop holistic intervention.

You will explore how to build formal and informal support networks, implement and lead robust multi-agency teamwork strategies to enable continued learning and development. The course also looks at the needs of children when their parents are unable to meet their needs and how looked-after children of parents with learning disability can maintain positive contact.

Who is this course for?

This course is for anyone who works with parents with learning disabilities in a care or support environment from either childrens’ or adults services from across health, education and social care, voluntary and third sectors.

This could include:

• Social workers
• Care and support workers
• Mental health, learning disability teams
• Health
• Early years workers

Aims of the Supporting Parents with Learning Disabilities Course

• Consider the needs of both children and of parents and reflect on the tensions and challenges in safeguarding the child while supporting the parents.
• Explore good practice and early intervention.
• Explore challenges and barriers faced by parents with learning needs and the role of robust multi-agency practice in working together to address these challenges and barriers.
• Consider strategies to support the process of parenting with learning disabilities both emotional and practical.

The Supporting Parents with Learning Disabilities Course will explore the following areas:

• Reflect on challenges at different stages of a child’s development
  Challenges and needs at different stages of development and anticipating and managing needs; effective planning processes? Using strengths based solutions.
• Look at the relationships between children’s and adults workers
  Consider the relationship of the support worker with the parent with the learning disability.
• Challenges and staying focused on the needs of the child
  Including the essential issues in supporting parents to help a child be cared for within their own family and culture as far as possible.
• Roles and responsibilities
  Look at the role of a parent, the role of a support worker working with parents with learning disabilities, when to raise concerns.
• Consider attachment theory
  Think about relationships and their significance; drawing on research about attachment theories.
• Building support networks
  Exploring how to build formal and informal support networks.
• Multi-agency strategies
  Implementing and leading robust multi-agency teamwork strategies to enable continued learning and development.
• Needs of children
  The course also looks at the needs of children when their parents are unable to meet their needs.
• Maintaining positive contact
  Understanding how looked-after children of parents with learning disability can maintain positive contact.