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There is a new website in Australia.
The website gives advice to lawyers or to other people The website is called Making Sense. It gives information to support workers In Australia, lots of parents with intellectual disabilities Making Sense wants to stop this. |
A website providing vital information for lawyers and support workers of parents with intellectual disabilities is due to be launched on 13 December.
The ‘Making Sense’ website will be targeted at the representatives of parents who risk losing their children because of their intellectual disabilities.
The Intellectual Disability Rights Service (IDRS) will launch the site following the discovery that parents with intellectual disabilities are strikingly over-represented in child protection cases in Australia. While such families only constitute 1 to 2 per cent of the overall number of Australian families, as many as 10 to 12 per cent of cases related to child protection in Australia are fought by a parent with an intellectual disability.
Among the information provided by the ‘Making Sense’ site will be explanations of care proceedings in the Australian Children’s Court for support workers as well as figures and advice for legal representatives in court on how intellectual disabilities impact on the capacity to parent.
According to Janene Cootes, Executive Director of IDRS, the website intends to challenge the “pessimism” and “negative presumptions” surrounding parents with intellectual disabilities and the worrying trend of removing children at an early age from parents who are perfectly capable of looking after them.
‘Making Sense’ is funded by the Law and Justice Foundation of New South Wales and will be officially launched next month.
The website can be found at www.idrs.org.au/makingsense
