This part of the Contact a Family website is for students and professionals who work with families who have a disabled child.

Our factsheet for students and professionals has the essential family facts and figures that you need for that essay or dissertation as well as a helpful summary of legislation affecting families.

We have information in our reports page about various pieces of research that we have carried out to help you gain a more in depth understanding of the issues faced by families with a disabled child.

Our packs page points to several loose leaf information packs that may also be of interest. We aim to help you work more effectively with families. For example, our pack for health professionals aims to help you better support families around the time of diagnosis. We also have a pack on how to consult parents and involve them in developing your service.

If you are looking for advice and support for the families you work with, you should also have a look at our families' page.

In our factsheets section, you will find all sorts of information about family's rights in relation to benefits and special educational needs for example. There is also information about dealing with the emotional aspects of having a disabled child and our making contact section allows parents to chat with others across the world by e-mail.

In your area gives you local information and our local offices are always pleased to hear from professionals working in the locality they serve. You can also see a sample copy of our magazine 'Connected'.

As well as detailed information about patterns of inheritance or immunisation for example, our Directory of medical conditions gives medical information about a particular condition and associated national support groups. Access to the website version is free of charge for families. Families can view a maximum of five different conditions per six month period. Families needing to access more than five condition entries can ring the Helpline on Tel: 0808 808 3555. For unlimited access to the online version of the Directory you will need to subscribe.

Our Parents and Paediatricians Together project aims to help paediatricians and their teams to provide better information to families, and to help parents get more involved in shaping child health services. It is run jointly with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH).

Our Paediatric project officers have already made many links with health professionals and produced a range of publications. They've also given talks to groups such as the Association of Physiotherapists and Community Children's Nurses in Edinburgh, and the RCPCH National Conference in York.

We respond to requests from local government professionals for help with getting parents more involved in planning services for disabled children. As a result we have published a guide for parents and professionals on Participation, and have appointed a national Parent Participation Manager.

If there are any questions that remain unanswered - do check our library and information service page, which has a frequently asked questions section. If you have a more specific query, you can e-mail the library staff via our Query Form and we will do our best to help you find the answers you need.

Contact a Family has announced a new service to help Children's Centres acheive their outcomes for disabled children and families. We are offering a subscription service which includes:

• A Parents' Starter Pack to enable Centre's to develop a library/information corner for parents;
• A Resource for Professionals comprising essential information for all staff working in the children's centre.

For more information, visit our Children's centres page.