Childhood disability: ordinary lives for extraordinary families.

Government reports, campaigning groups and parents all value the goal that families with disabled children should live 'ordinary lives'. Yet evidence of the impact of childhood disability on finances, housing, relationships, family life and mental health all points to barriers that families face to achieving this. With numbers of disabled children rising significantly, increasing numbers of families are living with disabled children and experiencing a life that feels very far from ordinary. Support services, both within health and the local authority, may use a medical model of disability that fails to acknowledge some of these challenges. This paper aims to raise awareness of some of the issues faced by families with disabled children and argues for a more holistic, social model of disability that takes account of the needs of the whole family when considering support needs, not only the needs of the disabled child.This has the potential to reduce the social and practical cost of supporting disabled children, improve outcomes for the whole family, and enable families to enjoy their children within a family life that feels something much closer to'ordinary'.