Disabled Parents Losing Right to Parent their Own Children in America while Foster Parent Recruitment Seeks “Imperfect Parents”

Disabled Parents Losing Right to Parent their Own Children in America while Foster Parent Recruitment Seeks “Imperfect Parents”:

I remember a commercial on TV looking to recruit Foster stranger's. What really pissed me off was them saying,"You don't have to be perfect to foster a child." Then why do parents have to be perfect? Double standard? You bet!!!

Parents with disabilities face challenges in raising their children. One challenge that many may not have expected, however, is the right simply to BE a parent. A recent article by the Pacific Standard describes the “uphill battle” that parents with disabilities face to keep their own children. The statistics cited are alarming:Research indicates that parents with disabilities and their families are overrepresented in the child welfare system. While parents with disabilities make up only 6.2 percent of all parents in the United States, a recent study found that 19 percent of children in foster care have a parent with a disability. According to data from the Child Maltreatment report for 2016 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, only about 25% of the children coming into the system are taken for reasons of physical or sexual abuse.Most children placed into the foster care system were not abused. Nationally, only 17.2% of the allegations against parents are even substantiated.