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Supporting parents: development of a tool to measure self‐efficacy of parents with learning disabilities
Author(s) -
Bloomfield Linda,
Kendall Sally,
Fortuna Sandra
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
british journal of learning disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-3156
pISSN - 1354-4187
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3156.2009.00607.x
Subject(s) - learning disability , psychology , developmental psychology , medical education , medicine
Accessible summary• Many parents with learning disabilities have their children removed and put into care. • Parents with learning disabilities often need support to manage their children and to be good parents. • This article is about how we worked with parents to find a way of seeing whether the support given to them is helpful. • If parenting support is seen to be helpful, more funding may be available for future support.Summary There has been a steady increase over the last 20 years in the number of parents with learning disabilities who are referred to social workers and community health practitioners. It is a common experience for parents with learning disabilities to have their child removed from the home and placed permanently in care, and although they are often judged as inadequate parents, it is known that they can be good enough parents when provided with parenting support. This article reports the development of a tool to measure the self‐efficacy of parents with learning disabilities, which will help to evaluate parenting initiatives specifically aimed at this parent group. A tool to measure parenting self‐efficacy (TOPSE) has been adapted to be accessible to parents with learning disabilities. Eighteen parents took part in the study to complete and comment on the tool with the help of a researcher from the community learning disabilities team. This tool, which consists of 45 self‐efficacy statements, now needs to be tested on a larger sample of parents with learning disabilities.