Project IMPACT Helping Parents with Intellectual Disabilities

Valhalla, NY (November, 2019) – A program designed to help parents with intellectual disabilities keep their children out of foster care has been so successful it may be copied in other areas.

The Project IMPACT (Improving Parenting Achievements Together) program run by the Westchester Institute for Human Development in collaboration with the Westchester County Department of Social Services has achieved impressive results with 98 percent of the families who complete the program keeping their children out of foster care more than a year afterwards.

“With the right kinds of support parents with disabilities can safely parent their children,’’ said Danielle Weisberg, Director of Child Welfare Services & Children’s Advocacy Center at WIHD. “Project IMPACT is keeping children out of foster care and keeping families together.’’

On November 15, child welfare professionals from across the region and beyond met at the Westchester Institute in Valhalla to talk about how to support parents with intellectual disabilities and examine the success of Project IMPACT and whether it might be copied in other places including New York City.

The program, which started in 2006, provides a master’s level social worker, under the supervision of a clinical psychologist, to work with parents in their homes three times a week for four to six months on parenting and practical skills. Parents enrolled in the program were at risk of losing their children after being identified by child welfare for abuse or neglect. The typical parent in the program has a full-scale average IQ of 65 and has 2 to 3 children.

An estimated 2.3 percent of parents in the U.S. have an intellectual disability, and those parents are at higher risk of ending up in the child welfare system. Project IMPACT, developed with the Westchester County Department of Social Services, works one on one with parents directly in the home breaking down the skills they need in a way they can best understand.

“Historically, the notion of individuals with intellectual disabilities taking on parental roles was perceived as unfeasible or unlikely. However, with the increasing integration of adults with intellectual disabilities into communities, more people with intellectual disabilities are becoming parents. With this increase is a growing concern that parents with intellectual disabilities are becoming disproportionately involved with the child welfare system,” according to Dr. Trupti Rao, Director of Psychology Training, and project coordinator for Project Impact at WIHD.

The November 15 conference was financed through the Boston University School of Social Work’s Center for Innovation in Social Work and Health and is part of a process which will determine whether the research behind Project IMPACT is strong enough to warrant it being copied in other places.

Some of Project IMPACTs’ findings according to research documented by Dr. Rao included:

• Nearly 70 percent of families completed the program;
• There was a significant improvement among parents who participated with an 18 percent improvement in skills and 24 percent improvement in home environment;
• 98 percent of parents who completed the program had been able to keep their families in tact a year afterwards compared with 64 percent of those parents who didn’t.

The research looked at the results of work with 50 families with children from infancy to 17.