'Healthy Start.' A National Strategy for Parents with Intellectual Disabilities and Their Children

Parents with intellectual disabilities, like all other parents, need support with child rearing. Often this support comes from family and friends, but in the case of parents with intellectual disabilities, they are more likely to have to rely on the service system. Research from a number of countries demonstrates that there is limited system capacity to support these parents. There are few appropriate services, and practitioners are generally ill-equipped to meet the parents' particular learning and support needs. In response, the Australian government has funded a capacity-building model known as "Healthy Start: A national strategy for children of parents with intellectual disabilities," as part of its Stronger Families and Communities Strategy. This paper presents this model for building systems capacity that, in brief, addresses on the one hand, practitioner commitment, knowledge, and skills, and on the other, the parent education and community development resources needed to support parents with intellectual disability and promote a healthy start to life for their young children. The model involves the development of local leaders and practitioner networks in addition to dissemination of knowledge and innovation to support evidence-based practice. Innovative, cross-disciplinary, and inter-sectoral practitioner networks are at the heart of this capacity-building model. These networks bridge the gap between research knowledge and practitioner knowledge as a basis for planning and coordinating local service development.