Formal supports are people like doctors, specialists, dietitians, therapists, educators and support workers  Informal supports are parents, carers, grandparents, aunties, uncles, neighbours, community, friends and siblings  

Identify which supports can help you achieve desired outcomes for your child or yourself. Both informal and formal supports can be an important link in a child or family reaching their potential. 

Can anyone think of a time where a formal or informal support has helped you achieve a goal?

Whatever you have in terms of formal and informal supports we like to quote the first black professional tennis player Arthur Ashe who said  “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

The best partnerships are firmly child and family centred, meaning they reflect the strengths and needs of our children and families and have the best interests of our child at heart. 

They are based on mutual respect – the respect of the professionals for our expertise as our childrens primary educators, and our respect for the guidance and knowledge that experts have to offer. 

They are based on open, honest, respectful communication so that relationships are safe, collaborate and supportive for everybody, and recognize what is required of parents, professionals and children to achieve the most positive outcomes. 

The best relationships develop when parents and professionals agree on the most meaningful goals for our children, and those goals are measureable, achievable and relevant. 

When we plan strategies and processes to achieve goals together, and agree on how we will evaluate our progress

When professionals support our capacity to work towards goals in the natural settings of our homes and communities, and when the whole family is empowered to support the achievement of our child and family goals.

Our children need professionals who: see our children as children, not as a disability or diagnosis. Who are empathetic, understanding, passionate, flexible and child centred in their interactions, develop a personal relationship with our children, and work with them in ways that are fun, engaging and meaningful to who our children are. Who relate to our kids in light of their individual strengths and interests. 

We have a responsibility to be the most powerful agents for change for our kids, believe in our agency and power as the experts in our kids, and know that our knowledge is valued and valuable. To share our expertise with professionals, to be confident leaders in professional partnerships, to educate ourselves and increase our knowledge so that we can be informed leaders, and to share our knowledge and experiences with other parents, to build a strong network of educated and empowered parent leaders who are confident in their own self-worth and competency. 

This statement was a follow up to our initial partnering with professional statement. It follows a similar theme to the last statement but it is no longer focused on professionals and parents. The focus here is squarely on us the parents and carers. How do we “lean in”? How do we make the difference? 

When we choose to lean in we understand – professionals are important, but they can’t replace our role as families. We choose to become leaders for our families and communities. That providing a good life doesn’t just mean for our kids, but for our families, ourselves, and our communities. And that a good life may include services and systems, but goes far beyond them. 

By leaning in – we share accountability to maintain partnerships with professionals; we respect their expertise but understand that we as families are best to lead our child’s team; we commit to being involved partners in our child’s therapy, share our expertise with professionals, and invest in our own education and learning

We accept the responsibility to embrace our children’s strengths and interests and use those as a starting point so that they become confident in their unique identities; reject the practice of focusing on what our children cannot do, and remind ourselves and others that a deficit focus is damaging; work to shift the perceptions of professionals about our parterships and their role in those relationships, so that the change we make helps other families; include professionals in celebrating our children, and stimulate family leadership by changing professional perspectives about what we want and what we can achieve!

We embrace the knowledge that: if we bring other parents along with us, we become a collective with a more powerful voice;  together we can make social change, we can achieve a social movement for a better, more inclusive, more accepting world for our children. Achieving acceptance for our children is the core business of family leadership.