Review of the Children’s Disability Network Team Service Model

Reconfiguring Children’s Services

Transforming Lives is a national programme of social and health care reform, intended to improve disability services in Ireland. As part of this reform, the HSE reconfigured children’s disability services through a programme called Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People. Specialist children’s disability services were reconfigured into Children's Disability Network Teams (CDNTs). This reconfiguration is now complete.

The CDNT service model provides specialised, family-centred health and social care services for disabled children with complex needs. The service model was developed based on recommendations in a 2009 report by the Reference Group on Multi-disciplinary Services for Children aged 5-18 Years. The intention is that CDNT services are provided based on children’s needs and with equity of access in every part of Ireland.

Review of CDNT Service Model

in 2025 the NDA were commissioned by the HSE to conduct a review of the CDNT service model. This was action 2.17 in the HSE's Roadmap for Service Improvement 2023-2026.

The review consisted of three parts:

• Part 1: a review of the CDNT service model
• Part 2: a project to examine optimal staffing for CDNTs to inform future workforce planning
• Part 3: an evaluation of a pilot of enhanced in-school therapy supports provided in certain special schools.

Part 1

Part one involved analysing HSE CDNT data, conducting surveys, interviews and focus groups with parents, children, staff, managers and many other stakeholders and inviting written submissions.

A draft of the part one report was submitted to the HSE and the Department of Children, Disability and Equality (DCDE) at the end of 2025 and revisions based on feedback received is ongoing. Early 2026 was spent developing technical documents with further details on findings of the data analysis and the various stakeholder groups.

We expect the report to be published in Q3 2026.

Thank you to all the parents, children, staff, managers and other stakeholders for taking part and sharing your experiences so generously.

Part 2

Part two involved analysis of data from the CDNTs, HSE CDNT staff census, CSO Census of Population, and data on student placements. A reference group was established to help inform the analysis. Part 2 of the review was curtailed due to limited time available to conduct this part of the review and limitations of the data. However, the report will inform the HSE's workforce development plans.

A draft of the part two report was submitted to the HSE and DCDE at the end of 2025 and revisions based on feedback received is ongoing. We expect the report to be published in Q3 2026.

Part 3

We conducted an evaluation of a pilot of enhanced in-school therapy supports provided in six special schools in Dublin and Cork in Q2 2025. We submitted a draft report to the HSE and Department of Children Disability and Equality in July 2025. This report has been used to inform the new Education Therapy Service and the NDA are advising on this work based on learning from the evaluation of the pilot.

We addressed feedback on the report and expect the report to be published in Q3 2026.