The Disability theme addresses three key priorities:
- increasing the quality and range of interventions, or actions taken to meet particular
needs, in early years (up to age 8) to improve the health and wellbeing of disabled
children and their families
- improving access to positive and inclusive activities, helping make sure disabled
children don't miss out on childhood experiences enjoyed by non-disabled children
- ensuring that all disabled children, young people and their families receive services
that recognise and meet their diverse needs, and that they are not excluded because
of differences in their background or culture.
The research has revealed a number of key messages from each priority which will
help service providers and strategic leaders design and create the best possible
services and facilities to improve outcomes for disabled children and their families.
This information is useful for those parents who are actively involved, through
parent forums and other participation channels, in shaping and driving improvements
in the way services for disabled children and their families are developed and provided.
Being armed with the evidence for what works will help parents be powerful advocates
for making sure services meet the needs of families with disabled children.
Read more
The C4EO Disability
theme homepage will give you access to the research reviews, the summaries
of key messages, presentations, related data and local practice examples.
Parents of disabled children – particularly those who are already, or would like
to be, participating in service development – will find much of this information
useful for helping them think about what their local services need to do to meet
the needs of disabled children and their families.
This resource will help you find your way around the information on the
C4EO website, and highlights the most relevant information for parents active
in local services. You can use the information to:
- find out more about the kinds of services available for disabled children
- understand how children's service providers make decisions about the type of services
they offer
- advocate for good practice in your area if, for example, you are involved in parent
forums and other groups influencing the way services are developed locally
- find examples of services that work for users in other areas
- support your arguments when advocating for your own or someone else's child, for
example with the local authority, or when writing to your MP, or the local newspaper
about an issue relating to disabled children's services.
The information referred to in this resource falls into three main types:
- Key messages: research reviews and summaries that highlight the
results of research and emphasise key messages.
- Read more: downloadable information and an online data tool which
contains data relating to disabled children nationally, regionally and at local
authority level, and can help you find out how children in your area fare compared
to the national or regional picture.
- Local practice examples: good local practice examples in children's
services that illustrate the key messages from our research.
Find out more
More on the different kinds of information is available on the
C4EO website. View the C4EO services page
and the C4EO resources page for documents
and resources highlighted here.
Because healthcare has improved, more children are now diagnosed with conditions
and disabilities that need expert support. This means that providing early intervention,
or helping disabled children when they are very young, is vital to providing effective
services for them. This will enable these children to have a real chance to achieve
their full potential. It also allows more effective support to be put in place.
Key messages
Our research shows that interventions work best when they are:
- carefully matched to children's needs, and family-centred. This makes parents feel
more confident and comfortable, and gives them additional skills to help them care
for their children
- offered in natural, homely surroundings, with an understanding of how the child's
family lives
- designed to help strengthen relationships between parents and their children
- coordinated, with different agencies working together to help a family where necessary
- easy for parents and children to use with clear information being provided on what
services are available.
These key messages encourage children's services to work closely with parents and
carers of disabled children. This can range from visiting families in their homes
to asking parents for feedback on information and services.
Good communication between all the people who provide services to disabled children
has clear benefits – making sure they don't fall between services and that
families are able to take advantage of all the opportunities available.
Parents are key to ensuring services meet the needs of their children and others
– by sharing your views and concerns with them, you can help improve services.
Many services now offer opportunities for parents to get involved through parent
panels or forums.
Local practice example
The Early Communication and Autism Partnership (ECAP), Nottinghamshire
This practice works with families in their homes to develop activities they can
take part in together. It also offers peer support groups for families. More children
are now using its services, and around 95 per cent of children accessing the support
have been successfully included in mainstream Foundation Stage provision. Read more
about
ECAP.
For more examples
View a range of
good local practice examples.
Read more
Download
Inclusive means, for disabled children, having the right to the same play and leisure
activities as non-disabled children. When surveyed, disabled children, young people
and their families regularly cite this as one of the most important areas in which
they would like to see an improvement in services. Having play and leisure activities
gives disabled children and young people the chance to develop friends and have
fun things to do, just as non-disabled children do.
Key messages
Our research shows that:
- making sure that both disabled and non-disabled children take part in the same kind
of activities, whether learning or playing together, is essential to disabled children's
happiness and sense of belonging
- disabled children need to take part fully in activities; simply making activities
available doesn't make them inclusive
- different people have different ideas about what inclusion means. Properly trained,
actively involved staff should be sensitive to a disabled child's need to feel included.
Parents have a right to expect services provided for their child to recognise this
need
- disabled children and their parents want services where both disabled and non-disabled
children meet. They also want specialist services that are just for disabled children.
For disabled children, taking part in activities with other non-disabled children
makes living with their disability less lonely. This means that they will find it
easier, growing up, to enjoy learning, playing, studying and working with non-disabled
people.
Because this information is available to providers of services for disabled children,
you can use these key messages to draw attention, if needed, to situations where
children may be being left out of activities and services.
Local practice example
The 'Out and About' Befriending Scheme, Rochdale
Rochdale's befriending scheme helps disabled children access mainstream activities
by matching them with a companion or 'befriender' who shares similar interests.
Befrienders are volunteers recruited and specifically trained to accompany and support
disabled children on activities for two or three hours per week. Find out more about
the
Out and About befriending scheme.
For more examples
View a range of
good local practice examples.
Read more
Download
Disabled children come from a wide range of backgrounds, and have a right to services
that include them, which means recognising and meeting their different needs and
those of their families.
This priority aims to raise awareness among people working with children who have
complex needs.
The local practice example shown below illustrates how one local authority met a
range of economic and cultural needs of black and minority ethnic (BME) parents
of disabled children.
Key messages
Because research in this area is fairly new, there is less information than in the
other priorities. However, research shows that:
- poverty and social disadvantage affect some disabled children from black and minority
ethnic (BME) backgrounds more than ethnic and cultural differences
- some asylum-seeking families may not seek help for their children because they fear
that their immigration status may be affected
- key workers can help families access services and benefits, which helps ease stress
and help them focus more on their children
- some parents of children who were placed away from home felt that early interventions
would have made this unnecessary.
Many disabled children and their families have similar needs but meeting these needs
may call for different approaches depending on the child or family's particular
circumstances. Parent advocates – those on forums or involved in other participative
activities – have an important role to play in explaining to service providers
just what approaches to take.
Local practice example
Oxford's cultural projects to engage with black and minority ethnic (BME) families
with disabled children or young people
Oxfordshire County Council set up three pilot groups to consult with Asian and African
families with disabled children because they saw that these groups of people were
underusing their services.
Find out how they worked to include black and minority ethnic (BME) families with
disabled children.
For more examples
View a range of
good local practice examples.
Read more
The progress map for
ensuring all disabled children and young people and their families receive services
which are sufficiently differentiated to meet their diverse needs provides
more details of key messages, and insight into how we validate and review services.
Download
Some terms used in this resource
Agency – an organisation involved in providing resources, services
or benefits
Best practice – activities or methods that are shown to produce
the best outcome or result
Differentiation – adjusting services to meet the needs of people
who use them
Diversity – recognising and respecting different backgrounds. This
includes age, ability, cultural, ethnic, gender and economic differences
Key message – the most important findings from our work on a priority
Key priority – an issue that research has shown to be central to
an area or theme of C4EO's work
Outcome – in the children's sector, this is a technical term used
to describe a child's life chances
Inclusive – a service or resource that ensures that children of
all backgrounds and abilities can take part in activities or benefit from services
Intervention – a method that is put in place to offer help to a
child or children
Local practice examples – these are examples of services that show
best practice based on our research
Positive – positive activities are those that promote happiness
and wellbeing
Progress map – an interactive web-based tool to help professionals'
access C4EO knowledge
Research review – a document that brings together and explains
all the research on a theme
Peer support groups – these bring together people who share the
same needs, or are from similar backgrounds
Theme – C4EO organises its work into themes that relate to types
of service, or types of need; this helps us focus and plan resources
Further reading for parents who want to be involved in shaping services
Involving parents and carers in planning and developing services for disabled children
is now understood to be the best way of creating cost-effective, responsive services
that work for families.
Aiming High for Disabled
Children (AHDC) aims to ensure that parents are involved at a local level
in strategic decision-making about the provision of services that their disabled
children need.
Contact a Family is a UK-wide charity providing advice,
information and support to the parents of all disabled children. It is committed
to empowering parent/carers and helping them to become involved
in shaping the services that their children need.
Together for Disabled Children works to put the aims of
Aiming High for Disabled Children into practice.
Parent Participation - Together for Disabled Children
Sign up to the Parents Participation
Facebook page.
