How we work

CDC’s approach to influencing and impact

CDC’s vision is for disabled children and young people and those with special educational needs to have full and happy childhoods, to fulfil their potential, and be active within the community. And we want parents of disabled children to be parents first - living ordinary lives. We seek to achieve this through an evidence-informed approach which brings together:

  • Research and emerging practice
  • Lived experience of children, young people, parent carers
  • Skills and knowledge from practice

Our work

We have a series of mechanisms across our programmes/contracts to help us achieve our mission and influence policy and practice to improve the lives of children and young people and parent carers.  However we are not in control of how those we seek to influence use the information and evidence we generate.

Bringing the voice of parent carers, children and young people and the SEND sector to policy makers

  • Strategic Reform Partner (Lead)
    • Ministerial Roundtable Group
    • Seldom Heard Parent Carers Group (Co-produced with cross-sector partners to help design the approach for the group and promoted it through their networks)
    • Voluntary and Community Sector meetings (via CDC Membership)
  • Making Participation Work (Partner)

Research, Evidence and Learning from practice

  • The RISE partnership (Lead partner)
    • Work in collaboration with Department for Education (DfE) leads and local areas to identify local challenges and design an evidence-informed bespoke intervention for each proposed local area that supports their development need and facilitates improvement. 
  • What Works in SEND programme
    • An ambitious learning and innovation programme designed to generate high quality evidence of what works (and what doesn’t) in SEND service improvement and practice models.
  • REACh (partner)
    • Work in the extension year (25/26) will extend and further develop the focus on inclusive practice.
    • The Change Programme will continue to test “whole system” change and build a shared understanding about what and how provision needs to change to enable inclusion.
  • Broader CDC activity
    • We develop and share learning and resources where we hear evidence that the workforce need guidance to support children, and we have relevant expertise and evidence E.g. Managing medication in Schools resource to be published.

Campaigning

CDC does not carry out campaigning activity but does support the sector in doing so.

From 2006 until 2015 CDC hosted the ‘Every Disabled Child Matters’ campaign.

EDCM, was a consortium campaign run by Contact a Family, Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and the Special Education Consortium, which stopped at the end of September 2015.

Currently, CDC supports the Disabled Children’s Partnership (DCP) and believe that the strength of the collective voice of the coalition of 120 organisations is a powerful mechanism for amplifying the voice of disabled children’ and families.

As part of CDC’s work with the DCP we were the lead author on Disabled Children at the Table.

We have also supported and promoted all of the DCPs research and campaigns including:

#SENDABetterMessage calls on the government to use its SEND reform programme to create a more just, fairer system of support for disabled children and families – one that is easier to navigate and gets them the services they’re entitled without having to fight for them.  

#LeftInLockdown exposes the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of disabled children and families, and calls for targeted recovery policies to help them heal from a year of lost progress. 

#SecretLifeofUs provides a platform for families with disabled children, raising awareness of barriers in society, and aiming to increase understanding and empathy of the experiences of families.

#ThisIsSocialCare is our latest social media campaign, highlighting the positive impact social care can make to the lives of disabled children and their families when the right support is put in place. Much like #SecretLifeofUs it provides a platform for parents to raise awareness of their experience with social care.

The DCP Manifesto 2024 has been a major year politically. Ahead of the general election we launched the DCP Manifesto, calling on all major political parties to consider disabled children and their families in their respective manifestos.

SEC & Parliamentary Influencing

The Special Educational Consortium (SEC) is committed to working in partnership with parliamentarians and government officials to promote and protect the rights of disabled children and young people and those with special educational need (SEN). Since its establishment in 1992, SEC has been an important partner in developing many pieces of legislation, including the Education Act in 1993, the SEN and Disability Act in 2001, the Equality Act in 2010 and the most recent Children and Families Act in 2014. We are proud to have established strong ties with parliamentarians both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords who are also passionate about ensuring disabled children and those with SEN are able to reach their full potential. We are always willing to meet with parliamentarians and wider sector representatives. Find out more here.