Working and caring for a disabled adopted child during a pandemic

Abstract

Integrating work and family demands can be challenging for families caring for a child with one or more disabilities. The pandemic and its changes to work, schooling and service delivery potentially added to these challenges. This exploratory mixed methods study sought to understand how the pandemic affected adoptive parents' work-life fit and service use. A total of 200 participants responded to survey questions about parenting an adopted child with a disability prior to, and after, the onset of Covid-19. More than half of the parents (59.2%) reported that it was somewhat to very difficult to integrate both work and family demands. Parents with greater access to workplace flexibility and supportive supervisors had significantly less difficulties combining work and family. Families who reported more problems with accessing mental health services, special education and respite care reported significantly more challenges with work-family fit. Parents reported increased stress due to the pandemic changes, but many also shared positive changes such as more time for family.Online services were experienced as effective for some children and reduced time spent driving to appointments. Recommendations for workplace and social service practice and policy supporting adoptive parents of children with disabilities are discussed.

Mothers As New Teachers During The COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities

“…Parents, especially parents of children with disabilities, reported higher levels of stress, mental health symptoms, burnout, and social isolation worldwide (Asbury et al, 2021;Hong et al, 2021;Kerr et al, 2021;Lee et al, 2021;Lipkin & Crepeau-Hobson, 2023;Manning et al, 2021;Sellmaier & Kim, 2022;Willner et al, 2020). In Willner et al's (2020) study, parents of children with intellectual disabilities living in the UK showed significantly greater levels of anxiety, depression, defeat/entrapment, and wish-fulfillment coping styles and received significantly less social support than parents of children without disabilities.…”

“…Therefore, many women abandoned their jobs or significantly reduced work time for childcare and remote schooling responsibilities (Collins et al, 2020). Moreover, parents, especially from underserved backgrounds, had various barriers, such as limited space at home, access to the internet, and knowledge of digital literacy, in providing educational support to their children (Averett, 2021;Özer et al, 2020;Schuck & Lambert, 2020;Sellmaier & Kim, 2022). Special education professionals described that many parents had to step in as teachers, taking on new responsibilities that ranged from logging into classes to even developing lesson plans (Long et al, 2021;Schuck & Lambert, 2020).…”

“…COVID-19 resulted in a loss of or significant decrease in disability-related services (Averett, 2021;Lipkin & Crepeau-Hobson, 2023;Jeste et al, 2020;Murphy et al, 2021;Neece et al, 2020;Sellmaier & Kim, 2022). Among US caregivers of individuals with a genetic diagnosis, including DD, ID, or ASD, 74% reported that their child no longer received at least one therapy service that they routinely received prior to the pandemic (Jeste et al, 2020).…”

“…Some parents of students with disabilities shared positive aspects of remote learning, including self-paced lessons, flexible scheduling, reduced distractions, and protection against bullying and peer pressure (Averett, 2021;Lipkin & Crepeau-Hobson, 2023;Roitsch et al, 2021;Sellmaier & Kim, 2022). Older children with disabilities were able to receive additional support and benefit from remote learning, while younger children seemed to be happier and less anxious at home (Averett, 2021).…”