The recent thread on adoption made me look into these issues more, and I came across this article.
' Various people, including facilitators from a crisis-intervention non-profit and court-appointed special advocates (Casas), reported clumps of dog hair, dog feces on the pathway outside, cobwebs, stains on the carpet, and pungent smells of dog, dog urine and stale cigarette smoke. Their house was cluttered with empty cans of Rockstar energy drink, magazines and piles of old newspapers from Eric’s days working in the mailroom at The Bulletin, a newspaper in Bend.
Uncleanliness, if to a point where a caseworker deems the environment dangerous to the child, can be grounds to remove kids from parents with and without intellectual disabilities. However, a dirty home is more likely a marker of poverty – not neglect.
“In an upper middle-class neighborhood – suburban neighborhood – there will be some homes that are super messy and nobody cares,” said Christine Gottlieb, the director of the New York University School of Law’s family defense clinic. But “when a caseworker walks into a low-income Black neighborhood or an immigrant neighborhood where people don’t speak English and the home is not in good shape, often because of poverty, they’re assessed very differently”.'
If there was dog faeces on the path, and dog urine in the house, that seems to imply the dog may not have been properly housetrained. If so, this is not something you can't help if you're poor. I grew up poor. We sadly couldn't afford pets, but if we had, my mother would never have kept a pet if we were unable to housetrain them. Yes, I can see that if there are issues with a dog & housetraining, a wealthier couple might be able to afford more help. But if you have a child, they need to be the priority, and wrenching though it is, you may need to give up your dog if they are risking hygiene. If the dog was not housetrained, it raises the question of whether there were any other issues with behaviour, especially as a young child was present.
Stale cigarette smoke - again, poverty does not mean you have to smoke. I can see why people with SEN and in poverty might be under a lot of stress, but it's been known for a long time now that smoking is a hazard for children.
I agree with the articles points re poverty and SEN, that social workers may apply harsher standards to the poor, and unfairly take children from SEN parents. The use of IQ tests does seem questionable.
BT otoh, it does no one any favours to speak as if poverty means you can't help your house smelling of dog urine and cigarette smoke. If poor people are being judged for that but richer are not, the solution is to judge everyone equally rigorously, not lower basic standards.
And it feels like the article is skirting round the fact that low IQ MAY have been part of the issue. I can't comment on the cases in the article as a whole, but the instances I mentioned above sound less like a family without resources, and more like one where the parents may genuinely not have understood certain things were problems.