Re-imagining social care services in co-production with disabled parents

Researchers from the Tilda Goldberg Centre for Social Work and Social Care at the University of Bedfordshire engaged with disabled parents involved with Ginger Giraffe (a cooperative that brings together disabled people and those experiencing multiple disadvantage together with health and social care students on placement) to define the priorities for the research (‘what do we want to explore?’). The central aims of the research were to: explore these six disabled parents’ experiences of statutory assessments in children’s social care services and subsequent service provision, including examination of: the assessment pathway (how they accessed support) ; the assessment itself (thresholds and eligibility criteria) ; the principles guiding the assessment, and how these were experienced by disabled parents ; draw on disabled parents’, child and family social workers’ and researchers’ knowledge and expertise to re-imagine how children’s and adult social care might deliver holistic services which value the needs, assets and rights of the whole family.