This is a relatively new scheme implemented in Norwegian municipalities with the aim of ensuring more coherent and better coordinated services for disabled children and their families.
The researchers will investigate how the scheme works in practice in selected municipalities and to what extent it can improve health care and services for children and their families.
"We are delighted to have this opportunity and are excited to start the project," says project manager Janikke Solstad Vedeler at NOVA, OsloMet.
"We are building on earlier research and, through collaboration with municipalities and interest groups, we can develop knowledge that says something about what it takes for disabled children to have their human rights fulfilled.”
A strong research environment
"NOVA has established one of the Nordic region's leading research environments in research on disability," says Guro Ødegård, Director of NOVA.
"This project will provide further knowledge about children with disabilities and their ability to have an everyday life that gives them time and space to be a family on an equal footing with other families, cultivate interests and social relationships.”
Collaboration between researchers, municipalities, and interest groups
An interdisciplinary research team with backgrounds in health and social sciences leads the work. They combine methods such as registry data, interviews, fieldwork, and case studies.
Researchers Janikke Solstad Vedeler, Kaja Larsen Østerud, Sigurd Eid Jacobsen and Vegar Bjørnshagen from NOVA and Elena Albertini Früh and Anette Winger from the Faculty of Health Sciences from OsloMet participate. They will collaborate with Cecilie Høj Anvik from Nord University and Idunn Brekke at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Brekke, Vedeler and Østerud are each heading the three substudies that make up this comprehensive project.
The project is conducted in collaboration with four municipalities and districts (Bodø, Frogner, Lillestrøm and Rælingen), and three organizations for disabled people (the Association of Youth with Disabilities, the Norwegian Federation of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (FFO), and Disabled Children’s Parental Association (HBF)).
"This partnership ensures both access to the field and the development of knowledge with a solid foundation in practice," Vedeler emphasizes.
The project, titled Coordinated Care for Children: Enhancing Quality in Health and Welfare Services to Families with Disabled Children (CoCare), will begin in 2026 and run through 2029.
