New by-law to facilitate at-home care for children with disabilities

AMMAN — The Cabinet has recently approved the mandating reasons for a by-law that could significantly improve disability care services in Jordan. 

During Sunday’s session, the Council of Ministers agreed on the mandating reasons for a by-law on early child disability and their families’ intervention, and referred it to the legal committee for approval. 

The by-law was first proposed by the Social Development Ministry as a response to the “lack of systematic programmes that integrate children with disabilities into their local communities and even families”. 

“The by-law was introduced due to the lack of communication between persons with disabilities at care centres and their families,” said the ministry’s spokesperson, Fawaz Ratrout. 

“Only a few families maintain regular or frequent communication with their disabled relatives, and a lot of them rarely or never communicate,” he noted. 

In previous reports, the ministry said that families are usually ashamed of their disabled relatives or do not know how to deal with them.

The by-law addresses this issue by implementing programmes which provide a team of specialists (early childhood specialist, a psychiatrist and a physiotherapist) who offer services for children with all sorts of disabilities in their homes.

Around 700 people with disabilities receive care at the ministry’s five centres, in addition to some 1,500 enrolled in private care centres, all of which witness “weak” familial communication, according to the ministry.