Filtered Out: LGBTQ Parents Engage with Special Needs Service Systems

Abstract

Using ethnographic methods, this study started from the everyday activities and narratives of LGBTQ parents of children with 'special needs'. A critical approach to intersectionality was employed to consider how certain parents, children, and families are constructed as "different" or "not fitting" in particular settings and contexts, and what consequences follow (Crenshaw, 1991; Gibson, 2013). Fifteen parents and six key informants were interviewed, all of whom were based in the Greater Toronto Area. Methods used were drawn from institutional ethnography (Smith 2005) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2005; Riessman, 2008). The study found that special needs services systems operate to filter out' potential service users at multiple points of contact, regardless of the intentions of individual providers or the written policies of organizations. Parents encounter interpersonal and text-based, procedural barriers that discourage, deny, and defer claims. As a result, parents do extensive systemwork' to improve the chances that their children will receive needed supports, and to fill in the gaps when they do not.This institutional reliance on parental work and the resulting framework of competition means that what children and families receive is highly variable. Parents marshal whatever financial, social, and relational resources they have in support of their efforts. Often going private' is the only or best means of being able to secure or augment public services, however only some parents have the financial means to do so. For parents and children with fewer resources and privileges, it is more difficult to avoid being filtered out. Parents reported particular vulnerabilities and strategies related to their LGBTQ identities as they navigated special needs services. Parent narratives reflected the ways that parents both contend with and reshape dominant ways of thinking about queerness and disability. The impact of dominant notions about desirable' children and parents could not only be seen in parents' narratives and strategies, but also in their reluctance to engage with special needs systems. This discursive background is thus another means in which parents are filtered out. These findings have implications for users, researchers, and providers of special needs service systems, particularly those who want to make special needs service provision accessible and responsive to all.