Accessing care services

During consultation group meetings, experts highlighted the need to capture the

parents’ experiences of coming into contact with support services for their child.

Young children with a disability often require additional care services to help support

their parents and family and the degree of ease with which they can be accessed can

vary greatly (Russell et al., 2021). The 2022 Government Policy Framework for Service

36https://www.thejournal.ie/inheritance-tax-threshold-increased-budget-2025-6501719-Oct2024/

Delivery of Children’s Disability Network Teams (CDNT) seeks to “Provide a clear

pathway and fair access to services for each child with a disability and their family

based on their need, regardless of their diagnosis, where they live or go to school.”

(CDNT, 2022 p. 3). Therefore, it is desirable to ask the study child’s caregiver about

this aspect to provide findings that can inform recommendations for policymakers.

This is especially relevant for improving accessibility for such important services, as

recent analysis using Growing Up in Ireland data reveals that the disability prevalence

amongst 13-year-olds has doubled between Cohort 98 and Cohort 08 (Smyth &

Russell, 2024).

To this end, questions can be employed to serve three separate purposes. First, to

know whether a study child living with a disability is currently accessing care services;

second, to potentially know what services the study child and their family are availing

of; and third, to learn with what degree of ease or difficulty the family accessed care

services. In order to qualify for care support services for children living with a

disability, caregivers must apply for an Assessment of Need37 to determine what

services their child will have access to. This topic has great policy relevance as it can

help to evaluate how effective current services for children with disability care needs

are and potentially inform new policy to better support families that need to avail of

care services for their young child.38 Additionally, asking about accessing care

services has longitudinal importance, as whether the child gets a timely and effective

intervention by age 3 may have a significant influence on their future development.

Recommendation for Cohort 24 at 3 years:

•Insert a question asking if the child has received an assessment of need. If the answer is yes, ask which services the family avails of for the child (if any) and ask if the child is registered with the local Children’s Disability Network Team, with an option for being registered but not yet receiving support. Finally, ask how easy it was for the family to avail of care services, with scaled responses.

37 For more information, visit: https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/disability/disability-assessment/

38 The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) seeks to create a more inclusive environment in pre-schools, so all children, regardless of ability, can benefit from quality early learning and care. The model achieves this by providing universal supports to pre-school settings, and targeted supports, which focus on the needs of the individual child, without requiring a diagnosis of disability. It has helped tens of thousands of children with a disability to access and meaningfully participate in the ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) programme in pre-school settings nationwide.

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