The Australian Family and Disability Studies Research Collaboration (AFDSRC) is part of the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney.

The broad aim of the AFDSRC is to actively promote the full participation of families where a parent or child has a disability in community life.

To this end the AFDSRC:

• Engages as researchers in the communicative task of understanding the shared experience of family and disability, seeking to identify those influences on being and becoming a parent with a disability, or a parent of a child with a disability, or the child of a parent with a disability; 
• Reveals the conditions (discourses, systems, processes and practices) restricting or precluding parent and child participation in processes of constructing their identities, authoring their lives and conveying their support needs; 
• Promotes communicative practices (at macro and micro-levels), that is, the full unconstrained participation of these parents and children in processes of understanding and planning for their support needs; and 
• Identifies the support and service needs of families with special needs (over the life course), and identify, or if need be, 'invent' effective approaches to promoting parent-child health and wellbeing.

The AFDSRC website includes comprehensive outlines of all AFDSRC publications, along with practice points on how to effectively work with and support families where a member has a disability.

Contact details:

Gabrielle Hindmarsh
Australian Family & Disability Studies Research Collaboration
Faculty of Health Sciences
University of Sydney
PO Box 170
LIDCOMBE NSW 1825 AUSTRALIA
Ph: +61 2 9351 9510
Fax: +61 2 9351 9468
E-mail: fhs.healthystart@sydney.edu.au
Link to site: www.afdsrc.org/