The Strengthening Families program will assist you in developing the knowledge, skills, and confidence to respond to the needs of a loved one. The program will develop key skills in optimism, resilience, assertiveness and well-being that will help overcome the challenges associated with supporting someone with a disability.

Delivered by Independence Australia's fully qualified trainers and psychologists, the Strengthening Families program will consist of four workshops that are run over a two or four week period. To  view the complete workshop information: http://www.independenceaustralia.com/families/

The Strengthening Families program will be run at a variety of locations across Victoria:

Collingwood 1 – start date 24th March
Collingwood 2 – start date 28th April
Geelong – start date 26th May
Bendigo – start date 21st May
Shepparton – start date 17th June  

All sessions will run from 10:30am to 2:30pm.  

To view your local workshop details: http://www.independenceaustralia.com/families/

Contact Jenny Sykes, Information Services Community Worker: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

School-aged children with physical disabilities have more participation restrictions than their peers with typical development. Studies in Western countries have primarily used cross sectional designs and no data on norm groups has been collected.

Data from children with and without physical disabilities need to be compared longitudinally to better understand what processes that promote participation. This study will investigate participation patterns in children with and without physical disability.

Another aim is to identify factors supporting participation. 125 children with and without physical disabilities will be studied for four years. Comparisons with children in the USA and Sweden are planned. Expected results are that methods for supporting participation can be developed.

Projekttid 2014 – 2017 Forskningsfinansiär Taiwan National Research Foundation Projektansvarig Ansvariga för projektet är Högskolan i Jönköpings och CHILD:s forskningspartners i Taiwan; Ai-Wen Hwan och Hua-Feng Liao, vid Can Chung University, Taiwan. Projektmedarbetare i Sverige Professor Mats Granlund, Hälsohögskolan, Högskolan i Jönköping

Contact: Kontaktperson Mats Granlund, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Martha Evans discusses the issues children with special educational needs and / or disabilities (SEND) face when it comes to getting online.

Last month, the Anti-Bullying Alliance embarked on the first ever consultation to discover what children and young people with special educational needs and / or disabilities (SEND) think about cyber-bullying and using the internet. What emerged was that children and young people with SEND are not using the internet as much as those who don't have any SEND, due in part to cyber-bullying and experiences of discriminatory behaviour.

Where young people with SEND did use the internet, many had firsthand experience of an often discriminatory and hostile environment, with some participants having personally experienced cyber-bullying. In many instances this was an extension of the face-to-face bullying they already experienced at school, and meant that rather than escaping the issue at home, it became a twenty-four hour problem which infiltrated even 'safe' environments. In addition, many young people said they were often not believed when they told someone about instances of cyber-bullying, or had experienced a lack of support and appropriate responses from adults; who often suggested 'avoiding the internet' as the best strategy for combating cyber-bullying.

Perhaps more worrying, is the finding that many young people with SEND are deliberately not using the internet for fear of potential cyber-bullying, or are being actively discouraged by adults, therefore losing out on the boundless positive aspects the cyber-world has to offer.

One of the most talked about experiences was using the often anonymous nature of the internet to hide a disability online, deliberately concealing this aspect of their identity.

A lack of education about internet safety was also described; this meant the young people were unaware of how to stay safe online, what to do about cyber-bullying, or how to understand when bullying behaviour was occurring.

It is clear from our findings that more in-depth research is needed into these issues, but ultimately, the solution lies in better education: not only in the classroom, via formats which ensure the information is accessible by all children and young people, but also better training for teachers and support for parents. 

From Martha Evans, Senior Programme Lead - SEND & Inclusion at the Anti-Bullying Alliance http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/send-programme.aspx

To read more about the ABA SEND Programme of work go to: http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/send-programme.aspx

To download the free guidance for teachers and professionals go to http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/media/7441/cyberbullying-and-send-module-final.pdf

For a more in-depth look at the young people's responses go to: http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/media/7443/disabled-young-peoples-views-on-cyberbullying-report.pdf