What is the issue?
In 2003 the Audit Commission National report - services for disabled children interviewed over 240 disabled children and their families and found:
- a lottery of provision, dependent on where people live, and how hard they can push for the services they need
- too little being provided, too late, with long waits for information, equipment and treatment
- a maze of services, that frustrates and confuses families.
The Every Child Matters website reports that only 4% of children get any kind of help from social services, although the latest figures indicate this has increased to 6%. Therefore over 90% of families with disabled children get no regular support or help at all.
Parents often tell us that there are limited short break options for children, especially those with challenging behaviour. Services may not be flexible enough to fit in with parents’ lives, work patterns or may not meet their cultural needs.
Parents also report waits of up to two years to be assessed by an occupational therapist for equipment. They report weeks of home visits, reports and letters to get equipment costing a few pounds.
Parents also report multiple assessments and meetings, usually on different days and in different locations, which all necessitate time off work.
What is the government doing about it?
Aiming High
The government are doing several things to try and address these problems. They produced a report called Aiming High for Disabled Children which sets out how they are planning to improve services with extra money.
- Additional money for short break services
The government has set aside additional money for short break services. At first this money will go only to a few councils in England who are leading the way in improving short breaks, but eventually all councils in England will get extra money to do this.
There is also additional money to pilot accessible childcare, so that more disabled children can access childminders, nurseries and services like this.
All councils will soon have to give parents better information about who is eligible for services, how they will be assessed and start working towards one assessment for all services (at present parents get up to 80 different assessments for different services).
Aiming High also set aside money to improve transition services – help for disabled teenagers to move more smoothly into adult life.
There are also extra resources to help parents influence the development of local services.
- Keep up to date with the latest developments on the implementation of Aiming High.
Early support
Early Support is a programme for very young disabled children. It aims to co-ordinate services and improve information to parents in the early days following diagnosis.
What is Contact a Family doing about it?
Contact a Family is serving on the Ministerial Implementation Group (MIG) which is overseeing the implementation of the Aiming High programme. Lord Adonis attends for Department for Children Schools and Families and Ivan Lewis for DH. If you have a comment to make about the programme you can e-mail: info@cafamily.org.uk and we can feed this back directly to the implementation team
Researching the impact on families’ lives of having a disabled child. A summary of our 2003 report into relationships is here.
- Working as part of Every Disabled Child Matters
Contact a Family is part of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign which aims to improve the way services work for families with disabled children.
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