Set Up to Fail: Disabled Parents and the Family Regulation System

This article was written by Sarah H. Lorr and published in Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons.

This Article highlights some of the many challenges that disabled parents face in the family regulation system. Using one mother’s case, as documented by a New York Family Court Judge following a termination of parental rights trial, Sarah H. Lorr surfaces the assigned child welfare agency’s limited and binary approach to mental health concerns, failure to provide appropriate services to parents with intellectual and developmental disability, and failure to address the trauma of parents involved in the family regulation system. She argues that the issues surfaced in the case of Ms. M. are emblematic of the broader failures of the family regulation system, case workers, state agencies, and others in the context of working with parents with disabilities.