Rehabilitation of Children With Multiple Disabilities

The objective of the study is to compare the usual care and treatment of children and youth (0-19 years) with multiple developmental delays and disabilities and their families in Simcoe York with a co-ordinated, navigated approach to care using the Children's Treatment Network (CTN) services.

The Children's Treatment Network (CTN)links existing children's services rather than creating a new Centre. The purpose of the evaluation is to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of this service with the usual care that people receive. 500 Children will be randomized to receive either usual care (250) or the co-ordinated, navigated care from CTN (250). The primary question to be addressed is whether the more integrated CTN model of service improves family-centered services, parent mental health, parenting, family function and the quality of the child's life and the families resource needs as well as reduce expenditures for the families' use of all other health and social services compared to the outcomes of usual care alone. What children and families with what characteristics and circumstances most benefit from which approach to the treatment of childhood disability in Simcoe-York? At what cost? Agencies providing services to children will be evaluated as to how effective their integration of teams are functioning, their partnership with each other and capacity building in the community.