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The recently launched Ouch! Parents message board is already proving to be a lively forum. Set up in response to popular demand, the board is already host to all manner of discussions concerning disability and parenting.

So far, the profile of contributors is as varied as the children they represent, including non-disabled parents and siblings of disabled children, disabled parents and would be disabled parents. Offspring have a wide range of disabilities - from the better-known CP and Down's Syndrome to the lesser known Pathological Demand Avoidance Syndrome and Charcot-Marie-Tooth Syndrome. The chances are that if you want to find someone else grappling with the same parenting issue as you, this would be as good a starting point as any.

The message board already features a range of discussions including requests for help, grappling with pre/pregnancy issues, dealing with social situations and emotional situations.

The most popular thread to date is about the very practical issue of fighting for basic education and care. It has almost become a victim of its own success, as it is now so long that it's starting to read like a book of parent's experiences of fighting the system.

What's interesting is that it seems to be fairly difficult to predict which threads will become the most dramatic discussions. For example, an article on help for first time mums has surprisingly few responses. Do people perhaps feel that their experience of being a disabled mum or dad is so individual that they wouldn't be confident in offering ideas to another parent? There's no doubt, however, that there are many common experiences that we disabled parents do share, as shown already on the message board.

In contrast, the thread of Parenting my Parents, which is a bit of a tangent to disability parenting as it's more about being a carer, has had a relatively good response, though it admittedly has digressed somewhat into the hunt for a dead neighbour's body ...

With an estimated 2.1 million disabled parents and 770,000 disabled children in the UK, the Ouch! Parents board is surely set to grow. My guess is that there will always be a split in emphasis between practical and political discussions, but that's the beauty of messageboards - you can take your pick of what threads to delve into and, in turn, be totally free to start up your own.