Babies and Disability – ECIA NSW/ACT: Innovation in Family Centred Practice Grant
What Families Want Other Families To Know About Early Intervention
The first year of life is a critical stage for a child’s development as they experience incredibly rapid growth and development.
When babies born with disabilities have access to intervention early:
- the impact of delays on their learning can be reduced
- their families know how to support development and
- children are given the best possible start to life.
EarlyEd’s commitment
EarlyEd is committed to ensuring babies have access to the best possible intervention services when they need it. Changes as a result of the roll out of NDIS create opportunities to improve services.
This has highlighted the need for an innovative approach by early intervention services to increase community awareness to better support families with babies and infants. Community services need to be aware of what families need to be fully informed and ensure they get the support they need for their child.
Share Your Experiences
EarlyEd has received a short-term grant from Early Childhood Intervention Australia NSW/ACT (ECIA) that will enable us to collect family stories and collate this information into a Family Centred Framework of Practice for Early Intervention for Babies & Toddlers.
EarlyEd wants to bring together families, early childhood intervention practitioners and community members to collaborate on this project focusing on the needs of families when a baby has a disability or delay in their development.
The Framework will aim to provide information for:
- Parents of babies and infants with a disability or concern about their development so they can make informed decisions
- Early childhood intervention providers so that they know what families feel matter and can trial new family-centred approaches
- Community agencies so they can be more responsive to the needs of families with babies and infants.
How can you get involved?
Are you a family that has previously received, or is currently receiving, early intervention services?
We are looking for families to volunteer to share their ideas and experience . You can get involved in a number of ways:
- Share your thoughts about what information would be helpful to know and how services should be offered.
- Become part of our project panel and provide input on the design of the project and how we should undertake the research. This will involve 2-3 meetings either in person or via teleconference. You can choose what best suits you!
Click here for further information and how you can get involved.
Are you a early intervention practitioner, provider or community organisation?
This project will use a collaborative, family-centred approach by partnering with families, practitioners and community members in:
- The design of the project
- Creating a family centred framework for use by early intervention practitioners and community services
- Creating relevant, family friendly resources for families that are beginning the early intervention journey.
Click here for more information. You can also share the family flyer with any families who may be interested in participating in this project.
