Partnership with parents and disabled children. HIA of the All-Inclusive Wraparound Project for children with a disability

Abstract

The All-Inclusive Wraparound Scheme seeks to develop new ways of multidisciplinary, interagency working that will make a difference to the lives of children with disabilities (aged 0–18 years) and their families and carers across the Southern Health and Social Services Board in Northern Ireland. A concurrent HIA was undertaken with the aims of identifying the positive and negative health impacts, producing clear recommendations to improve the service and informing the development of an evaluation and monitoring framework. Eight community-based projects linked to 15 partners were involved in the HIA. Health and social services, education, the Library Board, voluntary sector community groups, parents and children all took part. It was concluded that there was a need for better information for parents to enable them to access services. Partnership working with parents and between agencies needed to be improved and parents and professionals on partnership working. The handover between services at transition from preschool to school-age and from school-age to adult services needed to be better planned. Conducting a HIA early in the implementation of Wraparound has enabled the project to take account of more perspectives and influence the delivery of services for children with a disability.