Research Unit

Family Support of children and adolescents with a disability

Duration
03 June 2019 → Ongoing
Group leader
Research disciplines
  • Social sciences
    • Behavioural and emotional problems
    • Disabilities and developmental disorders
    • Family support
    • Orthopedagogical assessment and diagnostics
    • Orthopedagogical interventions
    • Parenting problems
Description
This line of research addresses the question of how we can better support children and adolescents with a disability and their families, in order to improve the living situations, well-being and quality of life within these families. Research and practice emphasize the vulnerability of children growing up with disabilities, even though research also consistently highlights considerable variability in outcomes. Research also identifies that parents and other family members of these children are at increased risk to experience stress, lower well-being and lower quality of life. The main objective of this research line is to better understand the wide variation in the psychosocial development of children and adolescents with disabilities and their families. As a second objective, we want to explicitly examine which individual resources (at the child and parent level) and context characteristics contribute to positive growth, development, and well-being in children and adolescents with a disability and in their families, in order to improve family support practices. This line of research explicitly assumes a strength-oriented and development-oriented vision. In addition, a cross-disability perspective is central: support needs and experiences of children and their family members are studied across different disability groups, in order to identify both universal and group-specific processes. This knowledge serves as a foundation to further optimize parenting and family support practices, in order to improve socio-emotional development, well-being, and quality of life of all family members.