Good enough care? A study of the difficulties Norwegian child welfare workers experience in working with mothers who have intellectual disabilities

This article explores the experiences of child welfare workers in relation to families where mothers have intellectual disabilities. The study is based on data from focus group interviews with child welfare workers in municipal child welfare services. All of the child welfare workers say that mothers with intellectual disabilities have serious and widespread problems linked to parental functioning. The child welfare workers interviewed in this study conclude that these mothers often have inadequate or no education, poor economy, unstable employment, and unsatisfactory housing conditions. Although these problems are common among the parents child welfare comes into contact with in general, the mothers in question represent a special challenge because of their intellectual disabilities. The informants in this study say that they as child welfare workers need to question if ‘normal’ requirements from child welfare can be used with regard to mothers with intellectual disabilities in order to evaluate whether their children receive good enough care.