As part of the national roll-out of the Best Practice Guidelines for Informing Families of their Child’s Disability, the National Federation has been working closely with Dr Ciaran Browne (HSE National Lead Acute Hospital Division) and Ms. Ann Bourke (HSE - National Disability Specialist) in terms of dissemination. Together, we were delighted to have the support of Mary Immaculate College in Limerick - who generously hosted a 3 hour webinar on 3 December 2018 to bring the Informing Families training to a wider audience.This partnership underpins the collaborative approach between health and education that is so important when supporting families of children with disabilites.
On the day of the training the webinar was attended in person by 150 participants from acute, disability servies and primary care settings in the Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO) 3 area and Mary Immaculate students and staff members. The online training was attended by over 300 individuals - which included 50 cross-sectoral groups that came together across the country.
We are delighted that this training is now made available as a recording for any who wish to avail of it.
You can access the training at the following links. Please note that you must register to watch on the two links ( one registration per link).
Your user name in both cases is your email address. The password is 1234.
- 01 Workshop on Evidence-based Best Practice Ms. Alison Harnett 10am
https://msite-web.mic.ul.ie/Mediasite/Play/8089cf4e86b64e1f9dca70143923f7c11d
- 02 Workshop on Evidence-based Best Practice Ms. Katherine O’Leary 11.30am
https://msite-web.mic.ul.ie/Mediasite/Play/a16437eedc10496da912fb3852c78b8d1d
The training was delivered by Alison Harnett – who has recently completed her PhD in this area; and Katherine O’Leary – parent of two children with disabilities and Chair of the Informing Families project in Cork.
The first section of the training sets out the evidence-base of the Informing Families Guidelines along with the recommendations for best practice coming from the research. The second session continues with a tour of the Informing Families website (www.informingfamilies.ie) and Katherine O'Leary shares her personal story of the journey of her family in learning of her two children's disabilities and adjusting to this news. The personal story shared by Katherine brings to life the recommendations for good practice when communicating the news of a child's disability to the family, or supporting families who have concerns in this area.