Back at the end of 2015 Longford County Childcare Childcare (LCCC) partnered with Westmeath County Childcare Childcare (WCCC) in an eleven month pilot project looking at providing a Local Area Coordination of Disability Services. The project commenced in May 2016 and is now in it’s final few weeks.
What is the Local Area Disability Coordination Model?
This model is a practical implementation of the National Policy: Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures. The approach actively liaises with services within the community as a means of empowering families and communities to develop services meeting the identified and targeted needs of people with disabilities. An adaptation of the Local Area Coordination approach used in Australia and the UK has been used to create a Local Area Disability Coordination Model. This model will ensure children and young people with additional needs in both counties will have access, participation and seamless transitions across a range of services and supports. Local Area Disability Coordination combines a range of existing services and supports which are often fragmented services. Local Area Disability Coordination provides a single, local point of contact to support children and adults with disabilities within their local community. A Local Area Coordinator is a support and signposting service for families and young people with disabilities enabling them to live what they deem to be a ’good life’.
What have we done in the 11 months?
- Researched and produced a Guide to Services for Young People with Disabilities in Longford and Westmeath which provides young people and parents with information of local and national organisations and support groups.
- Developed a Transition Passport to support access and participation in a variety of settings during a child/young person life ranging from (0-24 years)
- Public information events
- Network meetings with professionals, services, parents and support organisations
- Provide training to early years education students
- Sourcing and organising training for families on various disabilities
Moving the project forward
We are currently showcasing our model as a blueprint for national replication. We were delighted to present about our model at the Early Childhood Ireland Research and Practice seminar last Friday 31st March 2017 under the ‘policy’ heading in both the oral and poster presentations.
In the questions and answer section at the end of our presentation we got lots of questions on our transition passport such as:
- What feedback was received from the consultative group on the transitions passport? We got great feedback from parents of children with additional needs regarding the Transition Passport included comments: “It’s a great idea, having everything in one book will save me explaining the same thing to different professionals” “It will give my child a sense of identity” “It will really make life easier, having everything about my child in the one document” “I like the positive language in it”
- The transitions passport appears to be an excellent document. When will it go into print and how readily will it be available? We are currently sourcing funding for the printing. We are hoping to have approx. 500 printed in the coming weeks for families within Longford and Westmeath.
We feel that our model has implications for both practice and policy. It informs policy makers of the gaps in local and national disability service provision. Highlights the vital role Local Area Coordination can play at county level to provide practical support to families and individuals with disabilities.
We are currently completing two papers one outlining the Local Area Disability Coordination Model and the second one as an evaluation of our project.
For more information please look at http://longfordchildcare.ie/disability-supports/
