Nursery World - Integrated plan for disabled

Children's Trusts in England that integrate health, education and social care will play a vital role in delivering services for disabled children in their earliest years, the Sure Start minister said last week. Catherine Ashton, giving the keynote speech at the conference 'Seamless services for children with disabilities', organised by the Disability Rights Commission, said support for disabled children in their first three years was crucial to their life chances. She added that the Government intended to build on the Early Support Pilot Programme (ESPP), set up to provide multi-agency services for disabled children under three and their families.

Catherine Ashton, giving the keynote speech at the conference 'Seamless services for children with disabilities', organised by the Disability Rights Commission, said support for disabled children in their first three years was crucial to their life chances. She added that the Government intended to build on the Early Support Pilot Programme (ESPP), set up to provide multi-agency services for disabled children under three and their families.

Baroness Ashton said, 'The major strength of the ESPP is that it delivers multi-agency child-centred services. This has been the abiding principle we have used in developing the ESPP resources, including the family and professional "tool kits". Putting policy into practice can be tricky, however, and that is why we have agreed to work with a series of Pathfinder sites to test out these tool kits on the ground.'

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