Open petition: Incorporate mandatory neuro-inclusive risk criteria during pre-birth assessments

Created by Emma Thomson
Closes on 23 April 2027

We ask the Government to amend the Children Act 1989 and/or Working Together to Safeguard Children guidelines, ensuring that all pre-birth assessment frameworks incorporate mandatory neuro-inclusive risk criteria.

We are concerned that the strict pre-birth assessment criteria currently which is a standardised checklist does not sufficiently take into account neurodiverse differences. e.g. Autistic masking can be misconstrued as lack of parental insight. We feel many neurodivergent parents (especially ones that have been put into the system in the vulnerable adult criteria) have wrongly been put on child protection plans which are inappropriate due to the criteria not understanding neurodivergent presentations.

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