Working With Families of Children With Special Needs: Partnership and Practice

The importance of partnerships between professionals and the parents of children with special needs/disability is well established in childcare legislation. But is it reflected in practice?Written for practitioners and those in training, this book recognises that forming partnerships can be a fraught process involving dissent as well as cooperation. Naomi Dale draws on case histories from her own experience to examine key partnership issues such as consent, confidentiality and diagnosis delivery. She combines up-to-date theory and research with practice to provide a wealth of suggestions and ideas for effective family work.Working with Families of Children with Special Needs features useful exercises with each chapter, making it an excellent resource book and practice manual for multidisciplinary professionals.

Naomi Dale was Director of the KIDS Family Centre, Camden, London. She is currently a consultant clinical psychologist in the Neurodisability Service (the Wolfson Centre) of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. An expert in family work, she is also involved in professional training and research into partnership support services.

List of fiugres and tables. Preface. Acknowledgements. Conceptual frameworks for partnership work. Beginnings. The paren'ts perspective. Communicating and negotiating. Frameworks for understanding the family. Working with the whole family. Assessment of family needs. Participating in developmental services. Information and control. The KIDS Family Centre: a model of service delivery. Legislation and partnership. Organisational issues. Looking back, looking forwards. Bibliography. Name Index. Subject index.