Large numbers of children with disabilities continue to be placed in institutional care. The community-based rehabilitation (CBR) model has been developed to prevent institutionalisation by providing support to children with disabilities and their carers in a number of settings. The CBR approach has been adopted as a national programme for children with disabilities in Nepal, which comprises of direct services, advocacy and social inclusion.
Direct services included providing preventive health care and corrective surgery to reduce the overall numbers of children with disabilities and training parents to assist in the rehabilitation of their children, including helping parents to communicate with children with hearing impairments by teaching them sign language. Advocacy work has involved: working to integrate 10,000 children with disabilities into mainstream schools or providing them with access to special schools, including over 500 children with hearing impairments who are learning in mainstream schools; raising awareness to reduce stigma against those with disabilities and increasing the understanding of disabilities in families; and also advocating for legislative change to provide disability scholarships and creating a disability identity card system to ease access to allowances.
Social inclusion work has involved helping to ensure that children with disabilities have access to children’s clubs in schools and promoting employment opportunities through providing vocational training for young people with disabilities and training, micro-finance and help with employment for parents.
For more information see: Final Evaluation of Community Based Rehabilitation Program: A Report