Contrasting perspectives of parents and service providers on respite care in Queensland, Australia

Abstract

Parent-carers need support to continue to care for their child with significant disability in their home. There has, however, been little evidence that respite interventions have consistent or enduring beneficial effects on carer well-being. This article reports the findings of a qualitative study which adopted an Appreciative Inquiry philosophy to interview parent-carers of children with significant intellectual and/or developmental disabilities on how formal support services have helped them maintain their health and well-being, and disability support staff on how they help such parent-carers foster their health and well-being. We conclude that better communication and collaboration between service providers and users, more targeted training of workers, and embracing a person-centred and family-centred approach to respite services are needed. In addition, clearer definition and communication of the scope of respite services are required to best support families of children with significant disability in their home.

Keywords:

• intellectual disability
• autism
• respite
• disability support worker
• family-centred
• person-centred

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Local government areas are the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ approximation of officially gazetted subdivisions by each state and territory in Australia.

2 Square brackets hold contain information added by the authors to provide better context or observations of non-verbal communication.

3 Italics denote words that participants placed particular emphasis on.

4 Names of all research participants and support providers and agencies have been substituted with pseudonyms.