Leadership and the ability to lead change has never been more important in the disability services sector in Ireland than at this time. The opportunity to make a real and significant contribution to the lives of people is great, but the challenges of a creeping bureaucracy and the rigidity of compliance have never posed such threats to that opportunity.

The birth of a child is the beginning of a process of change for every family. New roles and routines are established, relationships altered, new and varied friendships formed and experiences in the wider community take on a different perspective. The birth of a child with intellectual disability brings all of these changes along with the added dimension of a link and relationship with a service provider.

Reference to leadership increasingly arises in the context of managing change. The focus in this paper is primarily on the implementation aspect of leadership. There is also of course the visionary, identifying-new-horizons aspect of leadership. However, at this point in the evolution of intellectual disability services in Ireland, there is no dearth of vision per se.

DCU - MSc in Intellectual Disability Nursing Practice In Dublin City University (DCU)’s School of Nursing and Human Sciences, they have developed a postgraduate educational framework for nurses and .....