Across the country changes in services for disabled children are happening as the government programme 'Aiming High for Disabled Children' (AHDC) gets underway. Disabled children are now a national priority for local authorities and health services who will be receiving new funding to invest in services over the next two years.
The government report ‘Aiming high for disabled children: better support for families’, (May 2007) sets out the vision that all families with disabled children should have the support they need to live ordinary family lives.
The report identified three priority areas :
Access and empowerment:
Local authorities and health services will be expected to deliver the five elements of a ‘core offer’: information, clarity about how support is determined and allocated, integrated assessments, participation of disabled children and their families in local services and accessible feedback and complaints procedures.
Responsive services and timely support:
Making sure that the focus is on services that disabled children and their families need and that they are available, particularly at significant life stages, such as the early years and the transition to adulthood. Improving what information about the population of disabled children and their needs is gathered in order to inform planning and design of services.
Improving quality and capacity:
Increasing services which families say they need most: childcare for working parents of disabled children (pilot authorities are testing schemes), improved provision of wheelchairs and equipment, high quality palliative care services through the NHS, and, in particular, making short breaks available to more children and families and developing different types of short breaks so that a wider range is available.
The main workstreams within the overall programme are:
- Short Breaks
- Transition to adulthood
- Childcare
- Participation of parents, children and young people
- Palliative Care
- Community Equipment including wheelchair services
A new measurement to look at how well local authorities are delivering the services is being introduced: National Indicator 54, and standards for the Core Offer to meet.