Adopting a position

With more than 40 years in the adoption business and having been brought up in care herself, Carol Howard is well placed to see how the system can let down disabled children

When I’m out with my four sons, with two (sometimes three) of them using wheelchairs and two of them white and two mixed race, it’s clear we aren’t the average family.

People guess that the kids are adopted and say, “Oh, you’re doing a great job, but I suppose you get a lot of help”. No! I don’t!

I learned long ago about the difficulties of accessing goods and services for disabled children. Adoption agencies lead you to believe that if you adopt a disabled child you will get a package of care and financial support but I’ve had to fight many battles to get my boys what they need.

Three of our children are disabled as a result of child abuse when they were babies. I get very angry about the thousands being spent on the inquiries into the mismanagement of the Baby P case - when if he had lived and been disabled from his injuries - he wouldn’t be deemed worth the resources.

My son Conor was abused by a foster carer and his head injuries weren’t discovered for two months. By the time he started school it was clear that he had learning difficulties, but he’s now ten and he still doesn’t have access to an appropriate form of education.

The specialist help he needs costs £5,000 per year and an independent tribunal ruled this cost “unreasonable additional public expenditure”.

It’s such a blinkered, short sighted attitude. Conor was so frustrated with not being able to read and write that he felt suicidal. He’s already 50 months behind his peers. If he isn’t adequately and appropriately educated he will become a statistic. A high proportion of prisoners have been in the care system or have learning difficulties. Conor needs access to education to equip him for an independent life.

The professionals say, “The most important person in the child’s life is the parent; they know the child best”. That only holds water until you disagree with them and challenge them. If I say ,“that style of wheelchair won’t fit in my car”, if I have an opinion, all of a sudden they know best and I’m marginalised. It doesn’t matter if you have a good track record and are meeting milestones and have been right before.

I’m answerable to a lot of people but nobody is answerable to my children. In all this time no one has ever sat down with Conor and asked: “What do you want?”

I’m passionate about adoption: I’m hooked. But it’s not enough to issue a disabled child with an adequate mummy and daddy: you need support and resources.

I was in care myself, so you don’t have to be a psychologist. I had a good experience but it’s not an ideal way to get parented. The system doesn’t do much positive for any children, so it does very little for disabled children and a disproportionate number of them are staying in the system.

• Carol Howard was talking to Kelly Mullan