Our Services for Families of Children with Disability

The Association for Children with Disability can provide families with support and guidance in person or over the phone.  We can offer resources and information on support specific to your needs or provide referral to other relevant services.  Simply contact us for more information.
 
We also support Tasmanian families through a range of other direct disability services:

Advocacy

Individual Advocacy - ACD’s Family Advocates aim to assist carers of children with disability to develop skills and knowledge so they can make informed decisions; exercise their rights and advocate on their own behalf; or to advocate on behalf of families/carers of children with disability where appropriate.

Our family advocates cover the south, north and North West of Tasmania. All advocates work on a part-time basis on education advocacy within the Tasmanian state school system, assisting families with issues pertaining to inclusion and their children’s education outcomes and also have capacity to provide services outside the education system.

Systemic Advocacy - Our organisation works in other ways to help improve services for families of children with disability. This work is mostly conducted by our Executive Officer by advocating for families where there is policy or systemic barriers affecting or likely to affect service provision to families. Proactively, ACD will represent the best interests of families by participating in working groups, reference groups and other committees; by attending meetings with politicians and other decision-makers; and by writing direct submissions to Governments about the lack of services for families of children with disability.

Support for Parents

The Association for Children with Disability is able to provide parent support by way of individual support, information, guidance, referral and individual support to families by assistance in liaising with disability services as requested or appropriate.

Regional Support Groups
Currently ACD runs Parent Groups in Burnie, and Launceston. The aim of these groups is to provide families of children with disability with opportunities to support each other, socialise, invite guest speakers guest speakers to talk about relevant issues, share common stories, issues and solutions.

Mothers’ Camps
Once a year ACD holds a statewide Mothers’ Camp for mums who have a child or children with a disability. The camps are an opportunity for a weekend away for relaxation, discussion, debriefing, socialising and fun. The camps are for both members and non-members and are a popular and important annual event in the ACD calendar.
For more information on any of ACD’s services please contact us.

Workshops/Forums
Through the years ACD has run workshops and forums around the state designed to assist parents and families who have children with disability with information regarding services available in the state. Over the past 3 years ACD has been involved in post-school options forums in the north and northwest of Tasmania highlighting the services that are available to students who have a disability as they approach the end of their school life.

Case Management

Currently ACD is working with MAIB (Motor Accident Insurance Board) to provide Case Management services to young people with a compensable acquired brain or spinal injury. This service comprises of needs analyses, individual planning, referral and service monitoring in order to assist young people and their families to access the services they require.

Our Case Manager works with the client in a holistic manner with consideration also given to the needs of the family unit, or significant others and works with them towards achieving positive outcomes in a proactive fashion.

ACD also provides case management services outside MAIB on a contract basis and we are investigating ways to provide this service to all disability types.