Impact Snapshot

Social Prescribing for Children with Disability and their Families

Project Location(s): Kids Rehab, Rehab4Kids Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (Randwick and Westmead), HNEkidsRehab (Hunter New England Local Health District)
Project Lead(s): Professor Sue Woolfenden (SLHD), Dr Katarina Ostojic (University of Sydney)

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Equitable Pathways and Integrated Care in Cerebral Palsy (EPIC-CP) is a social prescribing intervention which supports children and young people with disability. The program identifies patients’ unmet social needs such as housing, transport and education and connects families with a resources pack and Community Linker (a person providing short-term, family-centred support to help families identify, access and navigate existing services and supports).

The Challenge

Health inequities arise from social determinants (unmet social needs) such as income, housing, education, employment, food security, transport and service access. For children with disability, these factors substantially influence participation, quality of life and health outcomes.

The Approach

The EPIC-CP team commenced the program in 2021, which included the co-design and pilot testing of a social prescribing intervention to address unmet social needs across three NSW paediatric rehabilitation services (Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick, Children’s Hospital Westmead and John Hunter Children’s Hospital). In total, 658 families were screened for unmet social needs in clinic with 104 families taking part in the trial.

Sydney Health Partners Support

Clinical Academic Group

  • EPIC-CP is the flagship project for the Child and Adolescent Health Clinical Academic Group. It was identified as an early priority by the leadership team and the work has benefited from the collaborations and support from within the group’s leadership team and reference groups.

Impact as of 2026

  • EPIC-CP demonstrated significant demand for integrated care with 58% of the 658 families screened as part of the trial reporting at least one unmet social need and over 70% of caregivers reporting moderate to high levels of psychological distress.
  • 94% of families recommended Community Linker support, 97% were satisfied with the intervention, and 88% of clinicians reported it as having improved their ability to support families with unmet needs.
  • EPIC-CP showed that universal social needs screening and navigation support is feasible, valued, and effective in connecting families with assistance. These findings helped secure $1.4 million in MRFF funding (2023-2027) to expand the model through EPIC-ND for families of children with neurodisability (ND).
  • Building on EPIC-CP’s success, EPIC-ND is Australia’s first social prescribing program designed for children and young people with disability and their families, with effectiveness, implementation and economic evaluations underway across three major NSW children’s hospitals (Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick, Children’s Hospital Westmead and John Hunter Children’s Hospital).

Recognition

  • 2026: Oceania Academy Award for Transformative Practice – Prof Sue Woolfenden
  • 2025: EACD IACCD Best Poster Prize – Dr Katarina Ostojic

Key Publication

Yeoh, A., Ostojic, K., Berg, A., Garg, A., Mcintyre, S., Scott, T., Eapen, V., Woolfenden, S., Paget, S., Azmatullah, S., Burnett, H., Cadiri, M., Calderan, J., Chambers, G., Dale, R., Dee‐Price, B., Rojas, D., Henry, G., Karem, I., … Zwi, K. (2025). Sociodemographic and clinical indicators of children and young people with cerebral palsy and reported unmet social needs. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 67(2), 245–253. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.16041

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Clinical Academic Group

Child and Adolescent Health

Partners

The Children's Hospital at Westmead, University of Sydney
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