Parents Plus and the HSE Children’s Disability services to roll out Parents Plus Programmes.
We are delighted to announce a new collaboration between Parents Plus Charity, the HSE Disability Division and Children’s Disability Network Teams to roll out and evaluate the impact of the Parents Plus Early Years and Special Needs parent support programmes to families over the next three years 2024-2026.
We look forward to working together with the CDNTs to train and support practitioners, building the capacity of teams in providing these evidenced-based programmes to help families deal with the challenges they face.
The critical value of early access to evidence-based and tailored parenting interventions for families raising a child with a disability cannot be underestimated. It is a key component of family-centred practice which recognise the importance of focusing on the whole family and not just the child requiring support. Research further emphasises that empowering parents of children with a disability with the tailored parenting tools that they define as needed to support their family, is a critical determinant of a child’s future outcomes, as well as affecting the well-being of siblings and parents too.
The Parents Plus Early Years and Special Needs programmes come from a holistic strengths-based model where parents are empowered to build their coping capacity. A further powerful element of the group-based programmes is that parents meet and support each other on their journey raising a child who has additional support needs . The project will provide training and implementation support for 160 practitioners from CDNTs over three years in the Parents Plus Early Years and the Special Needs Programmes.
As well as the programme trainings we will also run workshops on the Parents Plus Solution Focused Model of working with families. These workshops will be open to teams across a range of disciplines to support strengths-based practice.
If you are working on a CDNT and would like to hear more about the project you can email Ciara Ni Raghallaigh, Parents Plus Disability Programmes Lead at: ciaranir@parentsplus.ie
