Introduction
Key messages
Participating in positive activities is
associated with improved outcomes
for disabled children's health and
wellbeing. They experience enjoyment,
achievement and a sense of
belonging.
Not all services are genuinely and
actively inclusive, and there are
different interpretations of what
inclusion means. Inclusion needs
planning, resources and the active
involvement of trained, skilled staff.
Disabled children and their families
want inclusive services where
disabled children and non-disabled
children meet, as well as some
specialist ‘segregated’ services
exclusively for disabled children.
Improving participation is as
important as improving access.
Implications from the research for
local service improvement
When planning, delivering and monitoring existing
inclusive services, consideration should be given to
how genuinely inclusive services are.
Inclusive services need to be properly resourced, with
skilled and trained staff who can actively support and
maximise activities, including play, between disabled
and non-disabled children and young people.
All staff need to be skilful in facilitating
inclusive play and activities between disabled
children and non-disabled children.
A range of specialist and inclusive activities
should be offered so that disabled children
and young people are given more choice.
Disabled children and young people, and their
families, need support to help them engage
and feel confident that the experience
will be rewarding. This is particularly so for
disadvantaged families, as they may not
access leisure and cultural activities.
Limited exposure to non-disabled children’s
activities interferes with disabled children’s
social development, particularly in terms of
their understanding of peer culture. This can
make it difficult for them to integrate in
inclusive settings. Providing opportunities to
play and interact in inclusive play and leisure
settings throughout childhood and
adolescence helps overcome
this.
A cross-agency and crosssector
information strategy
should be created to ensure
that all disabled children
and their families receive
information about local play
activities. This information
should include access
information and reach families not previously
known.
Taster sessions help to encourage children to
try out a new activity. The information needs to
be provided in a range of formats so it is
accessible to all.
Local authorities should undertake ‘access
audits’ of play and leisure services, and make
changes to ensure all aspects of the service
are inclusive. This will include making
alterations to buildings and equipment,
improving access by car or public transport,
and increasing levels of staffing and funding.
Disabled children and their families should be
involved in the evaluation, redesign and
development of services, ensuring that a
diverse group of children are represented.
Local authorities should monitor the numbers
of disabled children participating in positive
activities and also evaluate the outcomes.
Challenge questions
These challenge questions are tools for
strategic leaders to use in assessing,
delivering and monitoring disabled children’s
access to services. They are based on the key
research messages from the knowledge
review, where there is strength of evidence for
effective outcomes and the strategies to
support them. The challenge questions are
structured using the model of whole-system
change from the Every Child Matters agenda,
as described by the Department for Children,
Schools and Families (DCSF): integrated
governance, systems, strategy, processes,
frontline delivery and child outcomes. C4EO
does not wish to be prescriptive by choosing
one framework over others, recognising that a
range of models to support systems change is
available.
C4EO is currently undertaking further work to
identify and describe systems change models
and tools which relate to this
complex agenda, and may be
adapted for use by strategic
leaders within Children’s Trusts
and local authority children and
family services.
The research review posed
questions about parents’ views
of service effectiveness and
outcomes. This is important in
the context of the Disabled Children’s Service
Indicator – NI054 – which will measure
parents’ experiences of services for disabled
children, in terms of information, transparency,
assessment, participation and feedback.
Many, if not all of these areas, are covered in
the content of the progress maps and the
challenge questions.
This progress map is the first version and will
be revised and updated following feedback
from sector specialists, experts in the field, the
regional knowledge workshops and other
C4EO and sector activity.
Integrated governance
- How is the concept of inclusive services
being explored and developed across your
partnership?
- Has your partnership developed an ‘across
agency’ and ‘across sector’ audit of generic
provision, to discover which services are
‘Limited exposure
to non-disabled
children’s activities
interferes with
disabled children’s
social development’
currently accessed, or not, by disabled
children? How are you using this information
to increase provision and take-up by
disabled children?
- How do you involve parents of disabled
children in your partnership?
- How are disabled children
and their families encouraged
to participate in wider
community activities?
- Has your partnership
developed a joint strategy to
provide specialist and
segregated services for
disabled children?
Integrated strategy
- How is inclusive practice being extended –
for example to extended schools and youth
provision, as well as children’s centres?
How do you make sure that your services
are really integrated?
- How do you involve parents in planning your
services?
- How do you ensure that up-to-date
information on available services is easily
accessible to families?
- How do you address the barriers which
disadvantaged families face when
accessing leisure and cultural activities,
such as household income, unfamiliarity
and perceived unwelcoming staff attitudes?
Integrated processes
- Do you have a programme to build and
adapt community sports and leisure
facilities (for example, seating, parking,
changing and toilet facilities) so that they
are accessible for disabled children?
- Do you offer a range of generic and
specialist/segregated activities so that
disabled children have a variety of activities
from which to choose?
- How do you involve children and parents in
ensuring the quality and variety of services
to choose from?
- How do you offer services to groups of
disabled children (for example, with learning
difficulties) who are least likely to engage in
leisure and other activities?
Integrated frontline delivery
- How do you encourage families and
children to identify and use services and
to try new activities?
- Have you trained your workforce to:
- develop inclusive activities,
in which all can join
- know how to respond to
children with different needs
- help children explore new
and unfamiliar activities?
- How are practical issues
solved – transport, parking,
space for wheelchairs and
other equipment, changing
and toilet facilities?
- Do staff working with disabled children in
generic settings encourage friendships, and
maximise opportunities for disabled children
to acquire the social skills they may lack?
Impact on outcomes
- How do you know if children and families in
your local area think that services are
inclusive, and what should be improved?
- Do children and families find services
straightforward to identify and to access?
- Have you put measures in place to
determine how services are making a
difference to the lives of disabled
What is the issue and why
is it important?
this right is enshrined in United Nations
legislation on the rights of the child. Disabled
children and young people have a right
to equal access to play and recreation.
Taking part helps children to form positive
social interactions, have fun and get active.
However, disabled children find it difficult
to access play and leisure activities which
non-disabled children take for granted.
They are less likely to take part and can be
perceived by practitioners as a ‘hard to reach
group’ who present ‘additional challenges’.
It is therefore essential that those planning,
delivering and monitoring play, sport, leisure
and cultural activities pro-actively include
disabled children and their families,
and ensure that services are genuinely
accessible and inclusive.
Services are changing as a result of Every
Child Matters. The government has committed
to improving access to positive activities (The
Children’s Plan), and have made a substantial
investment in play services. The Ten Year
Youth Strategy is focused on older children
and teenagers and aims to transform their
leisure-time activities and support services. It
builds on earlier policies which emphasise the
importance of young people participating in
sports, clubs, groups or classes and sets
national standards for positive
activities.
Other relevant government
policies include:
- recent policy on managing
obesity, which is focusing
attention on children’s physical
activities and what they do
out of school
- the Aiming High for Disabled
Children policy – ensuring that
disabled children and young
people can take part in
enjoyable and enriching activities of their
own choice.
- the Play Strategy (December 2008) – to
ensure better access and experiences for
disabled children.
This research review has assessed the
evidence of ‘what works best’ for disabled
children’s play and leisure services. The aim is
to support local policy and service development,
and ultimately improve the lives of disabled
children and their families.
Research
What does the research show?
Research in this area cannot yet identify the
play and leisure preferences of different
groups of disabled children, or the different
types of support they need. Most studies
focus on one particular group, and as it is
impossible to generalise across different
groups, only some tentative conclusions
can be drawn.
Information about disabled children’s access,
participation, and experiences is very limited.
However, all such studies have been included
in this review, as this is often the only evidence
available.
What are inclusive services?
There are different interpretations of inclusive
services.
- Some agencies allow disabled children
to use a service at the same time as
non-disabled children, but do not actively
help them to participate. These are not
genuinely inclusive, but are so-called
‘pseudo-inclusion’.
- Other services actively
include disabled children
and are designed and
resourced to enable disabled
and non-disabled children
to participate together in
activities or experiences
(‘active inclusion’).
- Services developed
specifically for disabled
children with similar levels
of ability (‘opportunity
inclusion’).
Disabled children and their
families want a choice of both inclusive and
‘separate’ provision, because they fulfil
different functions.
What do disabled children want from
play and leisure services?
Disabled children say they want:
- to see their existing friends and make new
ones – this is often more important
than the activity itself
- more choice as to where and how they
spend their free time
- to be able to access the support they need
to pursue their own leisure interests.
What difference do positive activities
make to disabled children?
Taking part in positive activities enables
disabled children to:
- develop relationships with children with similar
disabilities and with non-disabled children
‘Disabled children
and young people
have a right to equal
access to play and
recreation. Taking
part helps children to
form positive social
interactions, have
fun and get active.’
- experience success, enjoy and achieve
- acquire new skills
- feel part of the local community
- improve their physical health and emotional
wellbeing, particularly with sporting activities
- increase their self-confidence and expand
their beliefs, and those of their parents’,
about their abilities and potential
- have fun and learn to manage risks.
Such outcomes are dependent on appropriate
and sensitive support being provided in
inclusive settings. Negative
experiences (such as poor
staff or public attitudes) can
reduce children’s self-esteem
and make them feel
inadequate.
Barriers to access and
participation
The barriers to the inclusion of
disabled children in play and
leisure activities are multiple
and complex. They relate to:
- the child and their individual preferences,
their confidence and belief in their abilities,
shyness or lack of social skills and previous
experience of inclusive play
- the family’s tendency to participate – for
example socially disadvantaged families,
with lower levels of income, and access to
support, and families who have less belief
in their child’s ability and lower levels of
trust, may not readily access services
- the service, particularly the attitude and
awareness of staff, their knowledge, skills
and understanding
- lack of detailed, proactive, up-to-date and
accessible information about the services
on offer, for example, how inclusive they are,
particularly for families not already known to
services
- the environment, in terms of physical
access to buildings, amenities and
equipment, public transport and its cost,
access to childcare facilities and the
attitudes of other members of the public.
Limitations of the evidence base
There are few studies in this area, and most
are of uncertain quality. There is a lack of
research in England. Research from other
countries may not be relevant because of
cultural differences and different patterns of
service provision.
There is an absence of any detailed
information about the out-of-school lives of
disabled children and their participation in
positive activities.
There are very few rigorous evaluations of the
impact of taking part in positive activities and
therefore very little evidence of ‘what works’.
Overall, it is difficult to draw any
firm conclusions about best
practice because of the limited
amount of data available and
the different ways in which
‘inclusive services’ have been
defined. Any future research
should evaluate the different
ways in which ‘inclusion’ is
being interpreted and
implemented by services. As
part of C4EO’s ongoing work,
we will be collecting evidence from local
practice.
