Triad First in Families -- Family Support Approach
Family support is an approach to service delivery, which provides people with disabilities, and their families with whatever it takes to enable them to live as much like other individuals and families as possible. More specifically, the term can mean a wide variety of resources, services, supports and other assistance. It may include activities such as resource brokering, networking with other community agencies and formal and informal sources of support and community development. There may also be efforts to make financial resources available directly to the families through such strategies as cash subsidies, vouchers, or a system of reimbursement for expenses incurred. Families utilize these resources for services they determine to be needed such as respite and childcare, health insurance, and home adaptations. The central feature of family support is that the individual with a disability or family member is the most important decision maker in determining which types of service and which service providers are most relevant to their needs.
Specific outcomes related to this approach are to:
- Improve and provide family connection to community support and strengthen the abilities of families and individuals to use these supports.
- Decrease the need to place children and adults out of their home or their community.
- Enhance the development of a consumer driven service delivery system by giving families more control of available resources.
- Allow the individual and involved family to participate in integrated leisure, recreational, social, educational, and vocational activities.
- Enhance the development of a consumer driven service system through increased collaboration between consumers and professionals from local disability agencies in such areas as staff training and policy development.
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