HMN 2025: How Parents and families of disabled children are disproportionately investigated by child protection services

New research published in the Journal of Social Work has uncovered that there is alarming mistreatment of disabled children in England by child protection services.

The findings call for a change to national guidelines that have been deemed by parent-led groups and academics as too intrusive, resulting in systemic harm.

The research led by Professor Andy Bilson at the University of Lancashire, draws on nine years of Children in Need Census data from between 2015–2023, which shows that disabled children in England are increasingly receiving child protection responses that are too investigative instead of being supportive of their individual needs.

It analyzed Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Department for Education (DfE) to obtain data from the annual Children in Need Census. The data highlighted concerns that child protection services have become increasingly risk-oriented, which has led to parents of disabled children being more than three times as likely as those of non-disabled children to be investigated in 2023.

Most investigations do not find harm and instead later deter families from getting help. And the high volumes of unnecessary investigations divert scarce resources from the practical support disabled children need, the study warns.

The findings support the sentiment many parents and practitioners have felt—that families of disabled children are too often investigated rather than helped, and that responses must be retargeted to identify and support needs in order to prevent family crises.

Andy Bilson, emeritus professor of social work at the University of Lancashire, said, “We know that there is a significant problem with how families with disabled children are treated by child protection services. The research echoes how parent-led groups have felt for years—that the risk-averse framework underpinning child protection services is leading to a culture of parent-blame.”

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