Programme news

These updates provide information about the most recent progress made with the Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) programme. Items are listed in date order, with the most recent first.

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Programme headlines

Parent participation grant levels for 2010-11 confirmed at £10,000 per local area (4 February 2010)
Grant levels for parent participation for 2010-11 have now been confirmed. A parent participation grant of £10,000 will be available in each local authority area in 2010-11. Together for Disabled Children will shortly be publishing the Phase 3 application forms on the TDC website, along with a new set of criteria and guidance on how the grant can be used. The closing date for applications is the 30 April. For more information visit the Together for Disabled Children website.

Short breaks consultation (1 February 2010)
DCSF have launched the Consultation on Draft Regulations, and Associated Statutory Guidance, for Local Authorities to Provide Short Breaks for Carers of Disabled Children and Young People. For more information AHDC short breaks programme go to 'Short Breaks'.

DCSF National Childcare Take-Up Conference (10 February 2010, London)
Since 2009 DCSF has worked with pilot authorities to identify and test innovative ways to overcome affordability and other barriers to accessing childcare. This conference will provide an opportunity to share emerging good practice from the pilots; highlight the obstacles and barriers that have been overcome; and discuss how success has been measured. For more information and to register, visit the National Childcare Take Up Conference 2010 website.

DCSF Green Paper - Support for All - includes proposal to extend key working (January 2010)
Support for All: The Families and Relationships Green Paper was launched on 20 January by the Secretary of State. The Green Paper sets out a wide range of measures to support all families as they bring up their children and to help them cope with times of stress and difficulty. For a variety of reasons some children, young people and families need more help than others and it is important they get the right kind of support at the right time. In order to support families, the Government announced in the Families Green Paper that it will extend the offer of key worker support to families with disabled children across the 0–19 range, starting with an initial period in 2010–11 to test out how best to provide this support, with a view to rolling this out more widely through a national programme.

Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) warmly welcomed the proposals and Director for Council for Disabled Children and EDCM Board member, Christine Lenehan said: 'This is a real victory for families with disabled children. Key workers have long been recognised as the most important solution for families in addressing the challenges of working with many different services. EDCM warmly welcomes the proposals to address this long term campaign ask'.

For more information about the Green Paper download Support for All.

£12.5 million DCATCH funding (15 January 2010)
Ed Balls and Children’s Minister Dawn Primarolo announced, on 28 December 2009, that parents with disabled children will now get better support to help with childcare following a £12.5 million cash boost. The cash injection will fund the national roll out of the Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare Programme (DCATCH). The 142 local authorities who were not part of the DCATCH pilots will each receive at least £59,000. For more information about this announcement read the DCSF Press Notice. More information on DCATCH is available on the Childcare page.

Individual budgets pilot - quarterly report (12 January 2010)
The DCSF have published the first Individual budgets: Evaluation and challenge/support quarterly report (November 2009) and a DCSF individual budgets: Evaluation and challenge/support evaluation briefing note that provides background information about the evaluation component of the research. For more information, go to the 'Individual Budgets' page.

Archived AHDC news
News items prior to January 2010 are available from the AHDC programme archive.