Research

We conduct research and surveys to understand the scale of some of the issues faced by families.

On this page, you can find key statistics about families with disabled children in the UK, our ongoing research projects and links to our downloadable research publications – and how to get involved in future research.

Key statistics about families with disabled children

Facts about families of disabled children and young people

• There are 1.8 million disabled children (up to age 19) living in the UK. (Family Resource Survey, 2023/24).
• Almost all (99.1%) are cared for at home by their family. 
• 26% of families with disabled children are lone parents. (Contact, Counting the Costs, 2024)
• 44% of families with disabled children have a parent with a disability or health condition (Contact, Counting the Costs, 2024).

Family finances

• Families with disabled children are more than twice as likely to be living in poverty than families without a disabled child. Families with both a disabled child and a disabled adult are more than two-and-a-half times more likely to be living in poverty. (Department for Work and Pensions, 2021/22)
• 23% of families with disabled children have no one in the household in paid employment and 19% have a household income of less than £20k per year (Contact, Counting the Costs, 2024).
• Caring responsibilities means the majority (62%) of parents/partners had to give up a paid job or reduce hours. On average these parents have lost £21,174 of income per year (Contact, Counting the Costs, 2024).
• 30% of families with disabled children live in a home that doesn’t meet need (Contact, Counting the Costs, 2024).

Impact of caring

• Only (4%) of families feel they get the right support to safely care for their disabled children (Disabled Children’s Partnership, 2021).
• More than half (54%) of parent carers have been treated by a GP for depression, anxiety or stress (Disabled Children’s Partnership, 2021).
• 40% of parent carers have experienced relationship breakdown with a partner since diagnosis (Disabled Children’s Partnership, 2021).

Schools & education

• Children with additional needs are much more likely to be excluded from school than their classmates. 
• The impact on disabled pupils of not getting enough support in school includes school avoidance (60%), school absence (47%), part-time timetables (22%) and exclusions (14%) (Contact and IPSEA, State of SEN support in mainstream schools, 2025).

Ongoing research projects

• The ‘Access to Healthcare North West’ research project

Our project to find out what deters disabled and neurodiverse children and young people from under-represented communities in the North West from accessing healthcare.

Research publications

You can find all our published research in our resource hub.

Resource hub

Browse our research publications and evaluation reports in our resource hub. You can filter by subject, nation and language.

Browse publications

Get involved in our research

We couldn’t conduct our research without thousands of parent carers sharing their experiences with us. If you’d like to find out about getting involved in our research, contact our campaigns manager Una Summerson at [email protected].

Join one of our campaigns

We use our research to inform our campaign work, and in some cases our findings have led to changes in policy.

For example, our Stop the DLA Takeaway in Hospital report was used as evidence in the Mathieson case, in which taking away a young boy’s DLA while he was in hospital for a long time was found to be a breach of his human rights.

Find out more about getting involved in our campaign work.

Support our research work

We couldn’t carry out our research work without your vital support. If you’re able to, please consider making a one-off or monthly donation to help us identify the areas in which families with disabled children most need us.