Vulnerable parents with and without a learning disability: Long-term outcomes for families with and without prior involvement in a parenting skills programme.

Families including a parent or parents with a learning disability can often have complex needs linked to issues such as poverty and mental health, and are known to be overrepresented in child care proceedings. Previous local project work with 12 families had demonstrated the potential of providing intensive support to parents with a learning disability, as well as others without a learning disability who were vulnerable for other reasons. A follow-up project 16 years later sought to re-engage with those families in order to explore their outcomes. Parents, children, and 3 key professionals involved with each family were to be interviewed; however, following recruitment issues, only parents from 3 of the original families participated, with parents with a learning disability from 2 other families being recruited to provide an additional perspective.