If we know what works, why aren't we doing it?

High rates of child removal from parents with learning disabilities persist despite substantial evidence that parents with learning disabilities can provide their children with satisfactory care given appropriate support. Child welfare interventions disproportionality based on disability status presents a compelling social issue deserving urgent attention. Co-operative inquiry was used to analyse attitudinal and structural barriers that perpetuate inequitable treatment of parents with learning disabilities and their children, drawing on policy and practice examples from Australia and the United Kingdom. Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be?” approach to social policy issues was used to answer the question: if we know what works to support parents with learning disabilities, why aren’t we doing it? This commentary contends that the pervasive representation of parents with learning disabilities as inherently deficient in the requisite skills (‘parenting capacity’) needed for safe caregiving has been difficult to shift due to systematic ableism. Neoliberal policies stigmatise a need for support (‘dependence’) as an individual failing and recast assessments of long-term support needs as an unsustainable burden on support services/systems. We conclude that a social model of child protection that is accessible to all involved returns to principles of interdependence, relationality and ethics of care.