National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities: Parents Empowering Parents / Padres Empoderando a Padres

The National Research Center for Parents with Disabilities conducts research and provides training and technical assistance to improve the lives of parents with disabilities and their families. We share our findings here on this website. We also offer information sheets, research briefs, and other resources.

Our resources are for parents with disabilities, legal professionals, social workers, and researchers, and cover a variety of topics, including child-welfare law and its effects on parents with disabilities, firsthand narratives from disabled parents about how they raise their children, and advice for professionals working with specific populations of parents with disabilities.

The Center for Parents recognizes that parents with disabilities know what they need. We are guided by the principle "nothing about us without us."

The Center for Parents community blog ...

What's Happening at the Center for Parents

What to Think About Before Having a Baby: A Guide for Women with I/DD

What to Think About Before Having a Baby

What to Think About Before Having a Baby is the first of four videos by the National Center for Disability & Pregnancy Research in its guide for women with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities.

Access NCDPR's first video guide

Advocacy and Action at the Intersection of Disability and Reproductive Justice

Advocacy & Action at the Intersection of Disability & Reproductive Justice

On Wednesday, March 29, 2023, the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy presented Advocacy & Action at the Intersection of Disability & Reproductive Justice, a conversation between Laurie Bertram Roberts and Rebecca Cokley of the Ford Foundation.

Access the Recording

Webinar: Black, Disabled, Deaf, & ProudBlack, Disabled, Deaf, & Proud

Webinar panelists discussed the intersectionality of their disability identity with their racial identities and what this means for their parenting. Recording and summary now available.

Access the Webinar recording

ParentingWell Learning Collaborative

Massachusetts Behavioral Health Providers are participating in the ParentingWell Learning Collaborative

ParentingWell® is an approach to routine practice that makes talking about parenting, children, and family experiences a natural part of the conversation and of an adult’s recovery process. 

Learn more about the ParentingWell Practice Profile

Upcoming & Recent

Go to: Upcoming WebinarsPast Webinars

Strategies to Support Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities with Child Welfare Involvement: Perspectives from Staff Providing Legal Services

Webinar: Strategies to Support Parents with Psychiatric Disabilities with Child Welfare Involvement

This webinar focused on parents with psychiatric disabilities involved in the child welfare system, with perspectives from legal services providers. Access the webinar recoding.

Parents and Parenting with Disabilities: Perspectives from Chile

Webinar: Parents and Parenting with Disabilities: Perspectives from Chile

Three Chilean disability researchers discussed their work, experience, and perspectives on parents and parenting with disabilities in Chile. Access the webinar recording.
Pregnancy Care for Women with Intellectual Disabilities

New Brief: Pregnancy Care for Women with Intellectual Disabilities

This National Center for Disability & Pregnancy Research brief in plain-language format describes the findings from interviews with doctors about pregnancy care for women with intellectual disabilities.
Pregnancy Experiences of Deaf People. Plain-language format

Brief: Pregnancy Experiences of Deaf People

This National Center for Disability & Pregnancy Research research brief in plain-language format describes the pregnancy experiences of Deaf people and identifies ways to improve care.

Our Map Resources

Current U.S. State Legislation Supporting Parents with Disabilities

Despite notable achievements in other areas of disability rights, parents with disabilities continue to encounter significant discrimination. Parents with disabilities are more likely to have their children removed by the child welfare system as well as have their parental rights terminated. Moreover, within the family law system, disabled parents are less likely to gain access to custody or visitation of their children. Finally, prospective parents with disabilities encounter barriers to adopting children or becoming foster parents. While there are many reasons for the pervasive discrimination, it is notable that the child welfare, family law, and adoption systems are largely driven by state statutes.

Go to Interactive Map | Go to Legal Background | Go to Summary of State Legislation

Current U.S. State Laws Terminating Parental Rights on a Basis Including a Parent's Disability

Current laws in many U.S. states include parental disability as grounds for the termination of parental rights. While some states have no laws allowing for parental disabilities as such to be grounds for terminating parental rights, most states have laws permitting this. Our map represents the nine combinations of disabilities that states now allow as grounds for terminating parental rights based on a parent's disability.

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