The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has appointed the Together for Disabled Children partnership to support the Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) short breaks programme and development of parent participation and parent forums.
Who is Together for Disabled Children?
Together for Disabled Children (TDC) is a partnership between Serco and Contact a Family.
The partnership provides a comprehensive range of skills, sector knowledge and experience of delivering national programmes. In particular, Contact a Family has been, for many years, at the forefront of work to improve the participation of parents of disabled children in the development and delivery of responsive services.
TDC will be working closely with the Council for Disabled Children.
About the TDC partners
Serco
Serco is one of the leading private sector partners operating within the education and children’s services sector. It works in partnership with DCSF and other partners to deliver support to local authorities in the roll out of Sure Start Children’s Centres. It supports the provision of quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all learners and their communities, through the provision of leadership advice, support and technology in the UK and overseas. Serco provides technology, leadership and advice to over 500 schools and eight local authorities in the UK and, in partnership, runs education services within three local authorities. For further information, please visit www.serco.com
Contact a Family
Contact a Family is the only UK-wide charity providing advice, information and support to the parents of all disabled children - no matter what their disability or health condition. Each year it reaches at least 275,000 families. It also supports professionals working with families.
Contact a Family works to give parents of disabled children a voice at a national and local level. Part of this work has been supporting parents and professionals to develop effective ways of working in partnership, helping parents to have a voice in how local services are planned and delivered. For further information, please visit www.cafamily.org.uk.
How will TDC help?
TDC is delighted to have the opportunity of working with both Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts on this exciting and challenging programme. The short breaks pathfinder areas that are already identified to take the programme forward and to play a key role in supporting other areas will be key partners for TDC in this work. The pathfinders have already identified significant challenges and TDC will be keen to work with you all to find solutions and deliver an increase and transformation of short break services.
The Aiming High for Disabled Children parent participation work will complement the short breaks work, offering support to parents and professionals to develop mechanisms for ensuring parents’ voices contribute effectively to local decision making processes. This lies at the heart of the transformation agenda.
Our aim throughout the programme will be to deliver proportionate and tailored support that adds real value to local delivery.