Children's Needs – Parenting Capacity - Digital Education Resource ...

Child development and parents’ responses – adolescence 195 Information on how to contact relevant professionals and a named contactperson in the event of a crisis regarding the parent. Un-stigmatised support from relevant professionals who recognise and valuetheir role as a young carer. Assessments under the Children Act 1989 for young carers. Access to young carers’ projects. Specialist support for ‘older’ young carers. An alternative, safe and supportive residence for young people subject toviolence and the threat of violence and those who wish to leave home at anearly age.Identified unmet developmental needs inadolescenceAs for the other age groups, a re-analysis of data of children referred to children’ssocial care (Cleaver et al. 2007 and Cleaver and Nicholson 2007) was undertakenfor adolescents, i.e. children aged 10 years and over. 12Table 6.1: Proportion of adolescents with identified unmet needsDimensionParental substancemisuse n=55Parental learningdisability n=16Health 20% 62% 20%Education 61% 63% 61%Emotional andbehaviouraldevelopment73% 73% 69%Identity 31% 28% 44%Family and social 65% 79% 63%relationshipsDomestic violencen=51The findings shown in Table 6.1 suggest a similar pattern of unmet developmentalneeds regardless of the parental disorder. A greater proportion of adolescentsexperience unmet needs in relation to their education, emotional and behaviouraldevelopment and with regard to family and social relationships. Although, onceagain, the findings suggest parents with learning disabilities experience difficulty inmeeting the educational needs of their adolescent children.12All information given in this section on the impact of parental disorders on children’s developmental needs isthe result of a re-analysis of data: Cleaver and Nicholson 2007 and Cleaver et al. 2007. The research did not coverchildren living with mentally ill parents and, consequently, such detailed information is not available.