Supporting Children and Young People with Disabilities

Scope of this chapter

This procedure sets out how to support children and young people with disabilities. It also details what support should be provided by key agencies.

Regulations and Standards

The Health and Well-being Standard

The Quality and Purpose of Care Standard

The Education Standard

The Enjoyment and Achievement Standard

The Care Planning Standard

Regulation 5 - Engaging with the Wider System to Ensure Each Child's Needs are Met

Related guidance

1. Key Principles

The Children and Families Act 2014 established the working principles for children/young people with special educational needs/disabilities:

Extending the Special Educational Needs (SEN) system from birth to 25 and giving children, young people and their parents/carers greater control and choice in decision-making;
Establishing birth to 25 Education, Health and Care Plans;
Offering Personal Budgets - young people and children who have Education, Health and Care Plans have the right to request a Personal Budget, which may contain elements of education, social care and health funding;
Creating a duty for joint commissioning which requires local authorities and health bodies to work in partnership when arranging provision for children and young people with Special Educational Needs;
Requiring local authorities to involve children, young people and parents/carers in reviewing and developing provision for those with Special Educational Needs and to publish a Local Offer of services;
Promoting local authorities to adopt a key working approach, which provides children, young people and parents /carers with a single point of contact to help ensure the holistic provision and co-ordination of services and support.

1.1 NICE Guidelines

Disabled children and young people up to 25 with severe complex needs: integrated service delivery and organisation across health, social care and education (NICE Guidance) also sets out recommendations on how support should be tailored to the child or young person with disabilities and the following principles should be followed:

Offer flexible support and provision, tailored to individual needs;
Training, resources and time should be allocated to the child’s needs;
Work with an integrated team to meet the child’s needs which includes health and social care professionals, parents/carers and the whole team who is supporting the child;
Know the child well and understand the child’s needs:
Know the child’s preferences and that their needs have been identified and recorded;
Changes should be shared with the integrated team;
Contingency plans are in place to maintain continuity of care and deal with changing and fluctuating needs.

2. The Importance of the Child or Young Person’s Views, Promoting Advocacy and Mental Capacity

If a young person is aged 16 or over and the young person lacks capacity to make a particular decision about their care, support and education, all practitioners and staff must:

Follow the requirements of the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and its Statutory Code of Practice. See also Mental Capacity Act resource;
Ensure that the young person is involved as much as possible in the decisions made on their behalf;
Others who know the young person well should be consulted and their views taken into account.

For further information, see NHS, Mental Capacity Act, and Advocacy, Independent Visitors and Independent Reviewing Officers Procedure.

Last Updated: March 20, 2026

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