As part of the Whizz Kidz charity the Ambassador Clubs plan, prepare, organise and deliver local clubs, centred on young wheelchair users that provide them with an outlet to socialize and make new friends.
The clubs run from 10am -3pm in a venue that is a suitable central location. They are flexible regarding delivery times, rolling out these during school holidays or at weekends, depending on the area. The other activities during these days include Drama and Music, film making and sports and games.
Acting as a ‘voice’ for disabled young people in the UK, the Ambassador Clubs support and provide the opportunity for these young people to come together as a forum and examine real issues that affect them and plan and organise their campaign. For example some campaigns that are already in full swing are looking at the quality of disabled toilets and another at disabled transport.
So far there have been 14 clubs established around the UK including Birmingham, Canterbury, Exeter, Guildford, Harlesden in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham, Sheffield, Tower Hamlets in London, Glasgow, Belfast and Cardiff. In the second year a further 25 clubs will open and in the third year, 12 more added. With over 500 young people participating in these clubs so far this makes it is the biggest network of young disabled people in the UK!
To find out more, contact:
Pete Webster (National Coordinator: Ambassador Clubs)
Whizz Kidz
E-mail: p.webster@whizz-kidz.org.uk
C4EOSupporting outcomes for employment and training, supported living and wellbeing
29 April 2010, Central London
Mary Sainsbury, C4EO's Vulnerable (Looked After) Children theme lead and Senior Practice Development Manager at SCIE is speaking at the above event on the emotional well-being and stability of young people leaving care. The event is being held in association with C4EO.
Ofsted has published a report showcasing outstanding work by childminders and nurseries in supporting children with disabilities, and speech and language problems.
Called Children in Need in Childcare, the report aims to provide useful advice to childcare providers on improving the way they support children with special needs.
The experiences of 25 childcare settings, which have all been judged as good or outstanding by Ofsted, were looked at for the report.
Children's secretary Ed Balls has pledged a raft of measures to improve training for teachers working with severely disabled children.
He has announced the launch of a six-month specialist course for new teachers looking to work with children who have severe or multiple learning difficulties.
The Training Development Agency will develop more accessible training for teachers who want to develop their skills in this area.
Challenges faced by parents raising a child with learning disabilities have long been acknowledged, but research in this area has typically focused on the needs and reactions of mothers, with fathers included, at best, as a sub-sample.
When studied in this way, mothers have generally been identified as the primary caregiver and person most likely to experience negative emotional reactions (Baker-Ericzen, Brookman-Frazee & Stahmer, 2005). Some exceptions have, however, been found, with fathers of children with learning disabilities also experiencing high rates of depression or stress.
A survey being carried out on behalf of Devon County Council aims to find out if local childcare provision is meeting the needs of parents and carers.
Around 2,000 parents and carers of children aged from birth to 14, and disabled children aged up to 17, will be asked about childcare provision in Devon and whether it meets their needs.
Councillor Andrea Davis, Devon County Council's cabinet member for Children and Young People's Health and Wellbeing, said, 'We want to make sure there is enough suitable, quality childcare for parents who are working or in education or training, and particularly for those on a low income, or who have a child with special needs.
BBC East Midlands Disabled Sportsperson of the Year, Richard Whitehead, is urging people to 'be the BIG difference' in the life of a disabled child and their family by becoming a short break carer.
share the care week
The Nottingham athlete is supporting the service as part of Share the Care Week (7-14 March), to raise the profile of short breaks and The BIG difference they make to disabled children and young people and their families across the City.
Pupils at special schools are more than twice as likely to be eligible for free school meals than those in mainstream provision, according to statistics released in Parliament.
Nationally, 32.1 per cent of pupils in special schools are eligible for free school meals. But only 13.4 per cent of pupils in secondary schools and 16 per cent in nursery and primary schools fall into this category.
Young offenders with special educational needs (SEN) could be missing out on specialist support due to a lack of trained professionals, according to figures obtained by CYP Now.
The statistics, gathered by a Freedom of Information request, show there are 153 special education needs co-ordinators (Sencos) and learning support assistants employed in young offender institutions (YOIs) catering for 15- to 17-year-olds.
THE Chiltern Centre for disabled children in Henley has received a donation of £330.
The money was raised at a Christmas concert given by the Henley Symphony Orchestra.
It will be used to buy a specially designed television for the children at the Greys Road centre.
Organiser Helen Fraser said: “It was the second year that we have put on a concert at Christmas for babies and primary schoolchildren and we donate money to a local children’s charity.
SOME quick thinking has helped a Morpeth childcare club make the right grade for disabled youngsters.
Dawn to Dusk, next to All Saints First School in Lancaster Park, had a long-standing problem that its mobile building could only be accessed by steps, which put off some people from attending the club.
Three year partnership will enhance the communications skills of disabled children.
One of Britain’s leading sports charities, The Lord’s Taverners, has entered into a major partnership with BT to create 12 new “sensory areas” across the UK for children with learning difficulties and disabilities. Together, BT and The Lord’s Taverners are investing nearly £400,000 in the project, which will leave a lasting legacy in local communities across the UK.
The Communication Trust, a 38-strong consortium of private and voluntary-sector providers, will be spearheading a nationwide 'National Year' campaign in 2011 which will highlight the importance of children's communication skills.
The Trust, which raises awareness about speech, language and communication issues for all those working with children and young people, was set up by Afasic, BT Better World Campaign, the Council for Disabled Children and I CAN.
A CENTRE which helps babies and toddlers with cerebral palsy has ten places open for new children.
The Rose Walton Centre, in Crescent Road, South Woodford, supports children up to the age of three who suffer from cerebral palsy and related difficulties.
It also offers support to children with Down’s syndrome and uses the Peto method, which includes repetitive exercises for hands, feet, arms and legs.
New short break schemes are on offer for West Sussex families with disabled children.
They will provide one-to-one or buddy support, personal short breaks either at the child/young person’s home or elsewhere, and after-school or weekend holiday clubs and play schemes.
Short breaks offer disabled children and young people the opportunity to enjoy positive experiences and meet new friends. They also give parents and carers a break.
Fifteen new schemes will soon be in operation across the county and more are planned. They form part of West Sussex County Council’s Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) initiative.
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Dawn Primarolo: Get to know what activities are on offer through your school
17 February 2010
- New campaign to get more families using extended services -
Parents will be targeted in a new campaign launched today, to help raise awareness of the range of activities, services and advice available through schools, as latest data shows that more than 90 per cent of schools are now offering extended services.
Over 20,000 schools are currently offering access to services for families in their local communities and thousands of children and parents are already benefiting. The new campaign aims to get even more families taking up the services available – with radio and press adverts starting today.
The Department of Health is inviting all strategic health authorities to bid for £50,000 to improve the delivery of equipment and services to disabled children.
The Department of Health has written to each of the 10 regions asking them to submit proposals for agreed work with Primary Care Trusts and other local partners that will help transform the way disabled children receive equipment and services as part of the £500,000 initiative.
THE Chiltern Centre for disabled children in Henley has received an award.
It was named winner of the short break setting of the year award in the Government’s Aiming High for Disabled Children scheme.
The announcement was made at the Oxfordshire Celebrating Inclusion Awards held in Oxford. Chris Kyle, who works at the Greys Road centre, said: “We were nominated by parents for the range of services that we provide, such as overnight and day care, play schemes and youth groups.
Bear hunts and habitat trails will be among the first attractions offered to disabled children when Ilkley’s Nell Bank Outdoor Education Centre opens its new residential unit this weekend.
Celebrations will mark the arrival of the first official guests at its £460,000 new block on Saturday, and youngsters who have been invited to the event will be treated to fun activities and a guided tour.
Nell Bank’s manager says the new facilities make the centre ‘the most inclusive education centre in Britain’.
Savings of £174m a year can be made if the government maintains short break funding for disabled children and their families beyond 2011, a report has claimed.
Commissioned by Action for Children and the Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) campaign, The Social and Economic Value of Short Breaks assesses long-term savings that can be achieved if the delivery of respite care is continued.
All local authorities will be required to provide short breaks for parents and carers who look after a disabled child, under plans announced today by Ed Balls and Diana Johnson.
The Government knows that for many parents caring for their disabled children can over time place a tremendous strain on them and their families. Short breaks from their caring responsibilities can and do make a vital difference to their lives and the lives of their children. Short break services include day-time or overnight care in or out of the home. As part of our consultation on disabled children’s services in 2008 parents said more short breaks provision was their greatest priority. The government responded to this and committed £280m in local authority grants over the period 2008-11 specifically to improve these services. The range and type of short breaks has grown with the support of the Aiming High for Disabled Children funding.
The government has been urged to ensure childminders are more involved in the running of children's centres.
The call has been made by the National Childminding Association (NCMA) in response to a government consultation on new statutory guidance for children's centres.
We are pleased to let you know that the funding levels for Phase 3 of Together for Disabled Children have been confirmed, and that a parent participation grant of £10,000 will be available in each local authority area in 2010-11.
We will shortly be publishing the Phase 3 Application forms on the TDC website, along with a new set of criteria and guidance on how the grant can be used. The closing date for applications is the 30th April.
Phase 3 applications from recipients of phase 2 grants will not be considered until the Phase 2 Grant Monitoring and Reporting form has been received and signed off. The closing date for receiving the Phase 2 Grant Monitoring forms is 26 March 2010. All of the documents and guidance relating to Phase 2 grant monitoring are on the TDC website. See http://www.togetherfdc.org/Topics/PPFundingandGrants.aspx
Oliver Taplin cracks a smile for the kind-hearted staff who will kick-off a fundraising mission in his name.
Staff at Haven Children's Centre in Gosport are gearing up for a bike ride with a difference in order to help pay for a lightweight wheelchair for the tot.
They will take it in turns to cycle continuously for five hours around the centre's grounds in a bid to raise some of the money needed to pay for Oliver's chair.
THREE more acts have confirmed they will perform at a charity concert in aid of children’s respite hospice Helen and Douglas House.
Comedians Jason Manford, Hal Cruttenden, and Tommy and the Weeks will join Rob Brydon in the line-up for Childish Things 6.
Student a capella group Out of the Blue will also appear, but two of the biggest names will only be revealed on the night.
A third of parents of disabled children say they are getting no support with their children's emotional or mental health problems, according to a survey by the charity YoungMinds.
The survey also found that six out of 10 of those parents that did receive support questioned its worth.
Around nine out of 10 said they encountered significant barriers when looking for mental health and emotional wellbeing support for their children.
A family worker came to see us and recommended we take Jacob to the local Sure Start Children’s Centre at St Thomas’. I’d heard about Sure Start before, when Elysia, now 10, was little. They sounded great and the only reason I didn’t take her at the time was that the children’s centre was quite far from where we lived and I didn’t drive.
Jacob was already being seen by a physiotherapist, but the children’s centre recommended a baby massage class, they thought it would complement what the physio was doing already, and it really did. We also tried a class called ‘musical babies’ together, where babies do actions to songs and rhymes.
SLOUGH has been named the top authority in the South East for services to families with disabled children.
The authority was also named fifth in the UK after a survey was sent out nationally by the government to see how happy parents and carers of children with disabilities were with the services they received from their councils.
The survey measures parental satisfaction in services for children with disabilities and only goes to those parents of a child with a disability.
The government has been urged to create a national strategy to address a lack of sufficient childcare provision for school-aged and disabled children.
The recommendation has been made in a policy paper on childcare written by single parent charity Gingerbread, seen exclusively by CYP Now.
Recent government changes mean many single parents are now expected to look for paid work in return for benefits. But, according to Gingerbread, the changes were not accompanied with a strategy to solve problems associated with the availability and cost of childcare. It points to gaps in provision for holiday childcare, school-aged and disabled children.
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The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) is calling for all trainers in England who provide disability awareness training to register their details on a new website.
The new website will benefit training providers by making it easier for employers from social care, social work, early years and young people's workforce to access disability awareness training locally for their staff.
The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes highlights best practice in widening access to positive activities for disabled children
Social exclusion is a common experience of disabled children and young people and their families. The right to engage in play and recreation is one that, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, most defines what childhood is. The Childcare Act 2006 and two government strategies - the Youth Strategy (2007) and Children's Plan (2008) - set out clear frameworks for local authority provision of inclusive opportunities for all children and young people in England to take part in positive activities.
There are currently four children's homes in Gloucestershire, two are managed by Gloucestershire County Council and two are managed by an independent provider. Plans have now been approved for a new contract that will mean all four homes are managed by a single organisation.
This will enable the service to become more flexible in how it meets the needs of disabled children and young people and their families.
Alison Cathles, commissioning project manager, Aiming High for Disabled Children, said: "As this will be a large contract covering the operation of all children's homes across the county we believe it will be attractive to a number of providers, including the best providers."
Children’s Minister launches national directory of over 150,000 childcare providers and family services From today parents across the country will be able to search for childcare providers in their region through one convenient website.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown recognises public sector technology innovators as e-Government National Awards winners are announced.
The best of the best in public sector technology implementation have gathered in London for the sixth annual e-Government National Awards ceremony at the London Guildhall.
Suffolk County Council won for a scheme allowing disabled children and their carers to book short breaks online.
DISABLED youngsters from across Torbay enjoyed a range of exciting activities in Paignton.
Aiming High for Disabled Children provided archery, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair football, among other sports, for young people.
The two-day event at Torbay Leisure Centre was the first of its kind, and organisers hailed it a huge success and were aiming to improve on it next year.
Children's campaigners have backed the government's pledge to expand its key worker scheme for families with disabled children.
Many councils and children's trusts already provide key workers to families with children under five, those making the transition into adulthood and children with complex needs.
But under proposals outlined in the government's Families and Relationships Green Paper this will be expanded to cover all children and young people with disabilities up to the age of 19.
CSD has won the UK’s highest accolade at the e-Government National Awards 2009, it was announced last night, Wednesday 20th January, at the prestigious City of London’s
Guildhall. The highly sought-after annual Awards recognise creative thinking in the public sector and excellence in innovative technology-driven services.
Up against keen competition from 5 other finalists from around the UK in the category, Building a better society with e-Government services (improving social inclusion / improving
lives and communities) CSD triumphed with its travel agency-style website for young people with disabilities in Suffolk, www.activities-unlimited.co.uk<http://www.activities-unlimited.co.uk/> .
Accessible childcare for young disabled children can provide a lifeline for many families. But a lot of parents continue to struggle to find suitable places locally with properly trained staff, as Ross Watson discovers.
Joseph Lewtas will be four years old next week. He struggles to speak, he still wears nappies and his heart rate needs regular monitoring. His mother Louise says he is a happy, loving young boy who puts a smile on the face of everyone he meets. But she admits his first year was the hardest of her life.
Thousands of families will be able to claim free computers and internet access under a Government drive to boost the achievements of children from lower income families.
The Home Access programme, which is being rolled out nationally today after pilots in Suffolk and Oldham, will allow 270,000 families with children in years 3 to 9 to apply for grants to buy computers and broadband connections from approved suppliers.
Read more via the above link.
THE Chiltern Centre for disabled children in Henley has received an award.
It was named winner of the short break setting of the year award in the government’s Aiming High for Disabled Children scheme.
The announcement was made at the Oxfordshire Celebrating Inclusion Awards held in Oxford.
The DCSF is undertaking research on what practitioners and settings can do to support and encourage stronger parental engagement. This will inform guidance and materials to help practitioners in schools, colleges, children's centres and early years settings to improve their work with parents.
To feed into this research the DCSF is keen to hear about your experiences. In particular it wants any evidence you have for the success of particular approaches or that helps it understand why other approaches may have been less successful. It is important that practice is included which reflects experiences of working with parents of children across the full age range, that is from 0 to 19 years.
See publication link for more information
Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan and Care Services Minister Phil Hope today reinforced the clear expectation for all local areas to deliver good quality mental health services for all children, including 24 hour cover for urgent mental health problems and child-only facilities for under-16s.
The Government is calling on all local areas to support children’s emotional wellbeing and mental health, as it publishes its full response to the 20 recommendations in last-year’s independent review of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
Keeping Children and Young People In Mind sets out the Government’s commitment to support local areas to deliver effective and high quality mental health services for children and young people, drawing upon existing evidence and good practice. Stopping emotional and mental health problems in childhood escalating to problems later in life will help young people achieve their full potential, and also help cut the cost to society of poor health, poverty, crime and low educational attainment.
Ed Balls today joined forces with Sarah Brown, Henry Winkler (aka The Fonz), First News and Pritt at No.10 Downing Street to launch a campaign focused on improving attitudes towards children with SEN and building their self-esteem.
The First News My Way! campaign will run in First News, the children’s weekly newspaper and will be fronted by Henry Winkler. Henry’s dyslexia wasn’t picked up until he was 30 and this has motivated him to change perceptions of SEN and inspire young people.
PARENTS and carers of children with special needs are to benefit from a new scheme offering essential support and advice.
NHS South West Essex is launching the Looking After Me course on Friday, January 8, for parents who have youngsters with disabilities.
The free course, to run once a week for seven weeks, will take place at the children’s centre in Cherrydown West, Basildon, and will be led by trained tutors who have their own experiences of caring for a child with special needs.
The UK’s second National Family Week takes place from 31 May - 6 June, and is an opportunity for practitioners working with children and young people to raise the profile of their work through a range of activities and events.
It offers a platform to promote new or existing services, to encourage parents to get involved with services or to give their views, and to address specific needs or concerns.
Support for those running events – including events packs – is available from the National Family Week website.
Daycare Trust warmly welcomes DCSF’s announcement of £12.5 million funding boost for childcare for disabled children. The additional resources will fund the national roll out of the Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare Programme, which will help provide expert advice and support for parents with disabled children when they are choosing childcare for their children.
Daycare Trust’s Parent Champions model will provide the basis for the Parent Champions scheme in the Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare Programme. As in Daycare Trust’s successful Parent Champions pilots, parents who have positive experience of using local childcare services for their own disabled children could help other parents who are choosing childcare by providing information and support about the services available.
THE LEGAL rights of disabled children and their carers will be discussed at a special conference in Redbridge next week.
The event - which is also due to focus on the services available to disabled youngsters in the borough - will be held at Redbridge Town Hall, High Road, Ilford, on Friday, January 15, at 9.30am.
The conference has been organised by the Parents Forum Interface, which was set up last year to fight for better services for families with disabled children.
A toddler is living life to the full after a major operation to restore his hearing.
Two-year-old Harvey Minto underwent the seven-hour operation to have cochlear implants put into his inner ear.
Now the Thorney Close tot is coming on leaps and bounds, learning colours and sounds and enjoying making new friends at playgroup.
Parents, local authorities and stakeholders can have their say in an independent review. The Salt Review will look into the supply of teachers trained to meet the needs of children with severe, profound and multiple learning difficulties.
A mum from Devon has successfully persuaded her local Sainsbury’s to purchase a specially adapted trolley seat for disabled toddlers.
She is now calling for every supermarket to stock the adapted trolley and Contact a Family is supporting the campaign.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has published the main findings from the second national sample survey of parents of disabled children in England. The survey was conducted between July and November 2009.
The government is to set up a national helpline for parents of children with special educational needs (SEN), following an independent inquiry into current provision.
Brian Lamb, chair of the Special Educational Consortium, led the review, which found too many parents of children with SEN struggle to get the support they need.
Lamb called for a cultural shift in how schools, councils and other services work with parents and children.
Parents of special educational needs (SEN) pupils will get more help to get the right educational support for their children, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, announced today.
Responding particularly to the recommendations on the SEN system in Brian Lamb’s final report on parental confidence, Ed Balls reasserted his commitment to listen to parents and provide them with the advice, information and support they need.
While Brian Lamb found that most parents of children with special educational needs are happy with the support and education their children receive, the Government agrees with him that more should be done to ensure all parents have access to excellent services.
Figures published today show an increase in parental satisfaction for services for disabled children in 2009-10. The national overall score increased to 61 points, up two points from 59 last year.
The findings come from the second national sample survey of parents of disabled children in England conducted between July to November 2009. For the first time this year the figures also include scores for local authorities (LAs) and primary care trusts (PCTs) across the country so parents can compare their local area with the national score.
Parents were asked in a questionnaire about their experiences of three broad service sectors: health, education and care and family support.
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls has accepted all of Sir Roger Singleton’s recommendations to make sure that the Government’s Vetting and Barring scheme draws the line in the right place and protects children without getting involved in private arrangements between parents and friends.
And he pledged to make the necessary adjustments to the rules of the scheme to ensure it strikes the right balance between protecting children and vulnerable adults without being unnecessarily burdensome. It is estimated that once these adjustments have been put in place, the number of people who will be required to register will fall from 11 million to nine million.
Sir Roger Singleton, the Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children and Chair of the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), was asked by Ed Balls in September to check that the line was drawn in the right place in relation to those who have to register with the scheme because of the frequent or intensive nature of their contact with children.
A scheme in Hull that gives disabled children the opportunity to take part in cycling has won the inaugural BBC Power of Sport award, backed by Sport England, for East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. This is the first year that the awards have been rolled out across all BBC regions in England.
The Aiming High Inclusive Cycling Scheme provides short breaks, whether an hour or an afternoon, for disabled children, their families and friends and carers, to allow the children, whether alone or with the whole family, to experience cycling in the safe environment of Hull’s East Park.
West Cornwall MP Andrew George is calling for new laws to help the carers of severely disabled children. He is seeking cross party support from fellow MPs in the Commons by tabling a Parliamentary Motion.
Mr George is working with the Mawgan based Henry Spink Foundation - an independent local family led charity – to significantly improve the support provided by local authorities for disabled children, adults and their carers.
They are jointly campaigning for 1) portable care packages and assessments for those disabled people and carers who work between local authorities, and 2) the creation of a new Independent Social Services Tribunal which would improve the lives of thousands of severely disabled children and adults and their carers across the UK.
MORE THAN 150 carers attended a high-profile conference in Torquay.
Among those attending the Carers' Conference at the English Riviera International Centre was Dame Philippa Russell.
As chairman of the Government's Standing Commission on Carers and a parent carer herself, she was keynote speaker at the conference.
She was made a Dame in The Queen's 2009 Birthday honours, for services to disabled children, young people and family carers.
DISABLED children from Halton competed at Merseyside’s 2009 Paralympic Games.
Youngsters battled it out for trophies against teams from St Helens, Knowsley, Sefton, Liverpool and Wirral.
Bill Beaumont, rugby legend and former team captain of BBC’s A Question of Sport, presented the awards after watching the children compete.
FOLLOWING a successful bid by Horsham District Council for more than £60,000 in funding, a co-ordinator has been employed to oversee a project for disabled children in the area.
The council recently gained more than £60,000 of funding from the Department of Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health to develop seven out of school activities for children with additional needs and their siblings, entitled 'Aiming High for Disabled Children'.
Ed Balls officially opened Hackney's ground breaking service for disabled children and young people last Thursday.
The Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, the Rt Hon Ed Balls MP, officially opened Hackney Ark on Downs Park Road.
The service which has been running for 18 months, provides a wide range of healthcare, education and social care services for children and young people 0-19 with disabilities or special educational needs, and their families.
Over 20 children from Norfolk and Quidenham Children's hospice attended the launch of the Shortbreaks Pathfinder multi-sports disability match day club at the YMCA, Trowse on Saturday, December 5th. The aim of the programme is provide multi-sports coaching for all abilities and to provide a valuable respite opportunity for parents.
The children, who have a range of disabilities, took part in a two-hour multi-sports session enjoying activities such as football, basketball, cricket and tri-golf. The children then headed to Carrow Road to watch Norwich City take on Oldham Athletic. As part of the Aviva Ability Counts week the children formed the pitch-side guard of honour as the players took to the pitch. The children then headed to the stands to cheer Norwich City onto a two-nil victory.
Disabled children's charity the Family Fund has welcomed the inclusion of the Child Poverty Bill in the Queen’s Speech. This came on the same day as a new report by Save the Children and the Family Fund reveals that 27 per cent of disabled children across the UK are living in poverty.
Children with learning disabilities are not catered for adequately by the court system, a new report has found.
A study by the Prison Reform Trust has labelled the justice system "unwieldy and opaque" when it comes to vulnerable children and adults, meaning they have to fend for themselves.
Insufficient numbers of doctors and adult services staff are getting involved in inter-agency training aimed at safeguarding children, according to research.
A study of the organisation, outcomes and costs of such training carried out by the University of Bristol and Durham University concluded that there was also a lack of participants from the housing sector and libraries.
Conference: "Every Step of the Way - Planning the Journey for Life-limited Children"
The London Borough of Ealing is launching a specialist homecare service for children and young people who are disabled, seriously ill or recovering from illness.
Child homecare is currently provided through the adults’ domiciliary care contract, but the new service aims to be more suited to children and young people’s individual requirements.
The service will be available to under-18s who have been assessed by children’s social services as needing homecare support. Children and young people will receive help with basic homecare needs, such as washing and getting dressed, and will be accompanied on any play or social activities.
Young people with learning disabilities must receive better information and education about sex and relationships, a three-year project has found.
Led by disability rights charity Change, research informed by the views of young people with learning disabilities, parents and teachers, found that young people needed to be better informed about same sex relationships, abuse and the difference between public and private spaces.
The swine flu vaccination programme will be extended to offer children over six months and under five protection against the virus.
Extending the vaccination programme to young children is supported by the panel of experts that provide advice on vaccination issues - the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Children under five years of age are more likely than other groups to be hospitalised if they become ill with swine flu. Young children also have high rates of admission to critical care and, sadly, there have been some deaths.
The NSPCC has released an online training toolkit to help children's professionals to uphold children's rights.
The toolkit has been launched today to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Guidance includes asking children for their opinion of services as a matter of routine. Setting up panels or committees to help them express their views should also be considered.
Disabled children and their families in Liverpool are benefiting from a £1.1 million cash boost to improve the quality of short breaks and holidays.
Liverpool is receiving the funding over the next two years from the Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) Capital Fund. It will help improve the lives of hundreds of disabled young people.
The city council is investing the money in a number of projects, including the improvement of existing short break residential units, the creation of a new short break facility in South Liverpool and the purchase of specialist equipment to support these breaks.
Children with disabilities in Leeds, and their carers, will soon be enjoying a much greater choice of short breaks thanks to a new NHS Leeds primary care trust and Leeds city council partnership. The programme is supported by the national Aiming High for Disabled Children scheme, launched in 2007 with £340m in funding from the DCSF.
A system for buying for specific short-break services is now under way, with the aim of increasing choice and autonomy for children. Barbara Shaw, service delivery manager for children's and young people's services, says this new, joint approach to commissioning has already radically cut the time needed to assess individual needs.
ONE hundred parents have joined together to create a group dedicated to improving the opportunities and services available to disabled children.
The Dorset Parent Carer Council (DPCC) launched this month and has secured £10,000 in funding through the Government’s Aiming High initiative.
More people will be helped into work, and more families lifted out of poverty as the radical Welfare Reform Act was given Royal Assent. It sets out the rights and responsibilities of people claiming out-of-work benefits, increases the rights of disabled people to take control of their lives, and boosts the rights of children and parents.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Yvette Cooper said:
"This Act will help get more people into work and more families out of poverty too.
"It makes clear that almost everyone should be on a journey to work - either looking for work now or preparing for work in the future. It will mean more support for people who face difficulties getting jobs but also greater responsibilities on people to take up that help".
It's not just physical impairment that makes some children different. Katherine Runswick-Cole and Dan Goodley talk to their parents.
As part of an ongoing research project, we asked parents of disabled children to look back at their experiences of parenting a disabled child (see box). This led us to think about how parents/carers discover, in the early years, that their child is disabled, and what this means for them and the children.
Greater co-operation and awareness across support services is the key to early intervention for disabled children, according to a report from a leading charity for families with disabled children.
Contact a Family's report, Our Family, Our Future, features the stories of 30 different families across the UK. It highlights wide differences in experiences and the positive effects of early intervention. Contact a Family is calling for a Government campaign to raise awareness of the needs of families with disabled children and a greater focus on awareness teaching in early years settings and schools.
A PARENT action group was officially launched in Grimsby Town Centre.
Members of the Parents United For Individual Needs (Pufin) held their launch campaign in Freshney Place.
The group is funded by Aiming High and works to voice the concerns over issues surrounding children with additional needs.
Amanda Burkitt, of Pufin, said: "The group was born from the Aiming High For Disabled Children consultation events that took place in 2008.
A staple in children's television, "Sesame Street" celebrates 40 years. Many parents of today are alumni of the beloved show and revere the characters like Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Oscar, and the Count as a possession of tradition, necessary to hand down to their own children. In an ever changing world, "Sesame Street" has kept up with current educational goals while maintaining the initial values, they set out with, 40 years ago.
Above all else, "Sesame Street" promotes a complete acceptance policy and a, lead by example, philosophy through the use of various disabled children. The message is hopefully heard by all children and parents alike; All are created equal along with treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated, regardless of any differences.
A pioneering new independent special school and regional services centre for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) will open in January 2010 near Cambridge. Gretton School is a special school, which will cater for up to 40 children and young people aged between 5 and 19 years, with autism and Asperger Syndrome. It will work closely with local authorities to provide quality education for those children and young people needing highly individual and focused special education provision and services. It will open as a day school initially and will extend its services to incorporate residential education as well as activities and support beyond the school day. It will also become a national provision to support research and training.
Children with complex health needs will have an individual health plan put in place next year as part of a government programme.
The move is one of a raft of measures outlined in the government's new Healthy Child Programme (HCP) for five- to 19-year-olds, which expands on the existing HCP initiative for the under-fives.
Faster and better contact between children’s services professionals across England will now become a reality as ContactPoint starts to be rolled out nationally to local authorities and frontline practitioners, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls and Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan confirmed today.
An evaluation report of the initial phase of the ContactPoint rollout, Lessons Learned from the Early Adopter Phase, also published today, shows how ContactPoint is making a positive difference daily to the practitioners already using it.
AN inspirational toddler has become one of the youngest in the UK to successfully use a special communication device.
Three-year-old Oliver Cunningham, of Heron Hill, Kendal, was born with severe quadriplegic cerebral palsy, which means he cannot talk or walk.
Several newspapers have reported on the steep rise in Down’s syndrome pregnancies, said to be due to recent shifts to later motherhood. This NHS Choices 'Behind the headlines' article examines the evidence behind these reports.
On 29 October 2009 Dawn Primarolo, minister for Children, Young People and Families, announced three new pilot projects to help up to five million mums, dads, carers and grandparents get important parenting information support and guidance.
The Parent Know How Innovation Fund was designed to explore and expand the routes available to parents to access information, support and advice from parenting experts or from other parents. The three new pilots, which will run until March 2011, could reach almost 5 million people. They are:
beGrand.net - A new web-service to give grandparents a voice, support the development of grandparent communities, increase support for grandparents caring for children, increase contact between grandchildren and grandparents and improve grandparents' parenting skills.
Parenting On Demand - Aims to develop and syndicate online videos designed to support parents/carers of children aged 5-19. The service will create a range of short video clips which will provide information and advice on a range of topics including learning, behaviour and wellbeing. The videos will also refer to other sources and services.
Relate for Parents – A new relationship support service from Relate. It will aim to develop online media tools to cater for parents needs by providing advice, support, and guidance to enable them to understand and improve their family relationships, manage conflict and make change happen.
A MAD Hatter tea party marked the 15th anniversary of a charity project aimed at incorporating disabled young people into mainstream activities.
A hive of colour, fancy dress and music greeted party goers during the celebrations at Queenswell Junior School, in Whetstone.
Hundreds of people turned out throughout the afternoon to show their appreciation of the work carried out by Barnet borough's Inclusive Play Opportunities Project (IPOP).
More than 200,000 working families will gain about £1000 a year, thanks to new rules around Housing and Council Tax Benefits, making them an average of £20 a week better off.
From Monday, income from Child Benefit will no longer be taken into account when calculating entitlement to Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. This will mean more money for families already getting these benefits and other low income families becoming eligible for the first time.
Fashion has also been a closed world to those with learning disabilities, so in a bid to challenge that, Style got together with the photographer Rankin, not one to shy away from controversial or challenging subjects, and the stylist Gary Harvey, fashion director of 125 magazine, to produce a fashion shoot styled by three LD fashion lovers. Harvey enlisted Kitty Gilbert, Jess Bromley, and his brother Ian, who often assists him on shoots. “I always love Ian’s creative assistance. He has a very free, open-minded approach,” Harvey says. “I’m shy compared to him. He has no problems dancing with the sexiest woman in the room. But I still encounter people who are, like, ‘I don’t want him to touch me.’ I have to say, those people are immediately not friends.” Harvey, who has produced four LD high-fashion collaborations, says: “I just want to provoke dialogue, get people asking themselves how they could include different people in their business.”
All parents who have children with disabilities, complex health needs and special educational needs are invited to the Amaze Parent Information Fair on Friday 6 November at The Brighthelm Centre on North Road, Brighton. The event, for local families, will provide information stalls, goody bags and free pampering from 10.30am till 12.30pm - but the highlight for many will be hearing Henry Normal and his partner Angela Pell talk about their experiences of having a child with special needs.
Henry Normal and Angela Pell live in Brighton and are Amaze’s new patrons. Henry began his career as a stand-up comic and poet and has been responsible for creating, writing, executive producing and script-editing some of the UK’s best television comedy of the last decade. Angela Pell’s career began as a performance poet and she’s a sit-com and film writer. Her first screenplay was the 2007 film, ‘Snow Cake’, which stars Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, who plays an autistic woman
The Information Fair also marks the launch of the Parent Carers Council (PaCC), a forum for parents of children with special needs which aims to help improve local services and support. The PaCC is supported by Amaze. The charity’s Annual General Meeting follows at 1.00pm and parents who book beforehand on 01273 772289 are welcome to stay for the AGM and lunch.
Direct payments for healthcare moved a step closer today with a new consultation launched by Care Services Minister Phil Hope.
The consultation on Personal Health Budget direct payments runs for 12 weeks, until 8 January 2010. It is available at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/index.htm
A CHILDREN’S centre marked its 50th birthday with a day-long celebration at its headquarters.
The Phoenix Children’s Resource Centre began helping youngsters with cerebral palsy at the old Farnborough Hospital in 1959.
It's now home to 26 different services helping children and adults aged up to 19 with a range of needs and disabilities.
Proposals that will further transform special education teaching and learning in Manchester and give more choice and better outcomes for young people have been agreed by the Council's Executive earlier this week.
The city wide proposals will see a continuum of provision developed for children and young people who have special educational needs from pre-school through to school leaving age and beyond.
The £28 million package of proposals includes early assessment through designated Sure Start centres and associated early years providers, and specially resourced provision at six mainstream primary schools and three mainstream high schools.
The government has appointed a children's charity director as the first ever communications champion, who will be responsible for raising awareness for children with communication needs.
Jean Gross, director of the Every Child a Chance charity, will be expected to highlight best practice among service providers, raise awareness among commissioners and plan, organise and lead a National Year in 2011 focusing on the importance of developing children's communication skills.
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has developed an innovative ‘buddy’ scheme which encourages young people to work with youngsters with disabilities.
More than 30 young people have volunteered so far to join the council’s ‘buddy’ scheme. Initially the young buddies take part in an induction evening at the Earls Court or Lancaster Youth Centres. Here the aims of the scheme are explained. All buddies have to sign a contract outlining what is required of them and then the training begins.
The young buddies pair up with existing youth workers. They supervise them and complete an evaluation of their performance at each subsequent training session.
The new scheme will be delivered by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) and the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA). Its tighter regulations are at the heart of the government’s strategy for increasing the protection of vulnerable members of our society.
Football legend George Best’s son has pledged to do a skydive to aid a Staffordshire children’s charity.
Fashion model and reality TV star Calum Best is to jump from 10,000ft next month in Fear Factor, a national skydive event being staged in Oxfordshire by Caudwell Children, which provides treatment, therapy and specialist equipment for sick and disabled youngsters.
Leading specialist employment service Remploy is urging the NHS to give more jobs to disabled people.
Chief executive Tim Matthews, former chief executive of Guy’s & St Thomas’ Trust, was speaking at a diversity conference in London organised by the trust.
He said that the NHS must ensure that their own workforces represent the communities in which they operate, including employing more disabled people.
The Summer issue of ‘Challenge’ is now available, this issue focusing on education for children and young adults with severe learning disabilities.
Policy and practice regarding children with learning disabilities have changed radically in the past 40 years. In the main feature, ‘Home or away’, Peter McGill (University of Kent Tizard Centre) examines recent research and issues for future provision, coming to the surprising conclusion that, despite the move away from long-stay hospitals and policies of inclusion, we are now excluding from their local communities nearly as many children with learning disabilities as we did in the 1970s.
In accompanying articles, a parent and an independent special needs education provider debate whether out of area residential school placements are a “scandal” or “solution” for families. Peter McGill sets out three recommendations for change if we are to reduce the need for residential school and other residential placements: “it would clearly be much better if far fewer children and young people had to leave their families and travel halfway round the country in order to access specialist knowledge and experience.”
Capita's 9th National Safeguarding Children Conference will provide you with the latest updates on emerging Government strategy and the practicalities of implementing Lord Laming's recommendations. This timely event gives you the opportunity to hear expert advice and practical guidance from key stakeholders enabling you to implement effective safeguarding procedures in your organisation.
for further details click on the above link.
Today, Ed Balls formally opened TreeHouse's Pears National Centre for Autism Education. TreeHouse is the national charity for autism education.
Opening the centre, Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, said:
TreeHouse does excellent work providing for children with autism and I am proud to open its new national centre today. I hope the centre will allow TreeHouse to develop its work in promoting better autism provision nationally, supporting parents and helping to unlock the potential of children with autism.
Mecca Bingo and Whizz-Kidz call for donations of Heels for Wheels - with help from celebrity friends.
On Friday 25 September, Mecca Bingo and Whizz-Kidz launched a new fundraiser that will turn ‘heels’ into ‘wheels’ - calling upon the public to donate old shoes that will raise money for young people’s mobility equipment.
Maidenhead MP, and Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions, Theresa May officially announced the scheme.
Ed Balls, the schools secretary, will today announce new measures to provide better support for disabled children and pupils with special educational needs.
The proposals will aim to make the process of assessing a child's needs easier and more independent, responding to complaints from parents that getting extra help for their children is often a difficult and protracted battle.
The government will look at taking assessment of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) out of the hands of local authorities, which, according to parents' groups, consider the cost of a child's education when assessing their needs.
At a Labour Party fringe event today (28 September 2009) a group of disabled young people will present their ‘Disabled Children’s Manifesto for Change’ to government ministers, including Children’s Secretary Rt Hon Ed Balls MP.
The Manifesto for Change has been produced by campaign group Every Disabled Child Matters in partnership with disabled children and young people themselves, who identified their priorities for the document. Through the Manifesto for Change, they are calling on all political parties to set out their policies on increasing respect, inclusion and participation for disabled children and young people.
Disabled children told EDCM that they routinely encounter a lack of respect from those who support them and experience bullying and negative attitudes to disability.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls has commissioned an independent review into the supply of teachers trained to meet the needs of children with severe learning difficulties.
Toby Salt, deputy chief executive of the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services, will look into the supply of teachers trained to meet the needs of children with severe learning difficulties (SLD) and profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD).
The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust will also be running a £550,000 project to share good practice in teaching and learning for children with the most complex learning difficulties.
The Association is holding a family fun day at Centre Parcs in Nottinghamshire on Sunday 4 October. They are also holding their AGM and annual conference at the Holiday Inn Harrogate on Saturday 21 November. For further details of these events visit http://www.tuberous-sclerosis.org/support/tsa-events/events-listing
The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) is carrying out an audit to create the first accurate picture of qualifications in the early years workforce in England.
The Early Years Audit Tool has been launched online and settings are being encouraged to submit information about their practitioners to help CWDC ensure high quality provision in childcare settings for all babies and children aged birth-to-five.
Directgov, the nation’s official website, today announces major improvements to their Blue Badge map to help disabled people travel across the UK more easily. Disabled football fans can now use the map to find out about a stadium’s accessibility before going to games by visiting the link below.
And it’s good news for train travellers too, as the new rail map gives information about more than 2,000 train stations. This means disabled people can find out about station facilities and can book direct assistance in advance.
The map already contained a wide range of helpful information, from the location of disabled parking bays to accessible beaches. The new additions are:
a rail map containing information on accessibility and disabled facilities for more than 2,000 train stations in the UK
assessments for more than 500 of these train stations
accessibility information for more than 160 major football stadiums
enhanced information on London underground stations
enhanced information on car parking across the UK
Featuring more disabled characters in children's literature could help kids with disabilities to feel more integrated into society, according to author Tim Rushby-Smith.
Mr Rushby-Smith, who himself was paralysed in an accident while he was working as a tree surgeon, wrote in the Times that the "normalisation" of disabilities is best achieved when children are young.
"Books and education provide an opportunity to move away from a point-and-stare culture, and can help all children to perceive those with a disability as part of normal, everyday life," said the author.
A national charity has launched a new service which provides advice on wheelchairs and their accessories for children with disabilities.
The Disabled Living Foundation (DLF) has added a new section to its Living Made Easy for Children website, which provides impartial advice on wheelchairs and mobility accessories for parents of disabled children.
DLF chief executive Christine Shaw said that she was pleased that the website was able to offer more information to parents living with children with disabilities.
Schools Minister Vernon Coaker today launched a DVD for pupils and a new resource pack for schools to help them prevent and tackle bullying of young people with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities.
The DVD ‘Make Them Go Away’ is aimed at children from seven to 14 to raise awareness of their peers with SEN and disabilities, including strong messages about how bullying affects their lives.
The schools minister launched the pack at a primary school in London that has been using an effective buddy scheme to give children with SEN and disabilities more confidence and to help prevent them being bullied.
To appeal to the young audience the film also includes a supportive comment from Arsenal Football Club Captain Cesc Fabregas that having a disability should not stop young people achieving what they want.
Report includes recommendations on improving delivery of benefits and employment support for carers
Disabled children and their families from across Suffolk are being given the chance to book a break in the picturesque surroundings of Fritton Lake, thanks to the opening of a specially-adapted woodland lodge.
Saturday marked the official opening of a four-bedroom lodge that is has been fully adapted for people with severe disabilities.
Lord and Lady Somerleyton, whose family own the estate near Yarmouth, not only cut the ribbon to open the holiday home, but also surprised youngsters on the day by arranging a visit from two Suffolk Punch horses.
The Family Fund is a charity that helps families with severely disabled children to have choices and the opportunity to enjoy ordinary life. They are considering whether it would be feasible to set up a new banking facility that would provide financial products and services designed specifically to meet the needs of families with disabled children.
They are conducting a survey to help them understand your financial needs. It would be extremely valuable if you could answer as many questions as possible. Your feedback will be very helpful in ensuring they meet your needs and those of other families with disabled children.
The survey should take no more than 15-20 minutes to complete and your response will be confidential.
You can complete the survey at the link below
The survey closes on 27th September 2009
To learn about the Family Fund visit: http://www.familyfund.org.uk/
The Local Government Association and providers' coalition the Children's Services Development Group (CSDG) have published a series of case studies to improve the commissioning of services for children with complex needs.
The case studies are included in a joint report by the two groups called In it Together: Achieving Quality Outcomes for Young People with Complex Needs.
Services covered include foster care and residential children's homes as well as specialist schools and education
Primary care trusts (PCTs) can improve services for disabled children by working with disability groups according to a report by the NHS Confederation.
Aiming high for disabled children: delivering improved health services looks at how PCTs can best work in partnership with local organisations to deliver high quality care that delivers value for money.
It contains a number of case studies examining PCT partnerships with child disability groups that have improved provision of equipment and services.
The successes and the drawbacks of a multi-million-pound initiative to give children better access to play provision have been counted up by researchers. Melanie Defries hears views on what it means.
However, many authorities have struggled to engage children who have disabilities. Norwich found that some disabled children did not use play areas because they needed supervision that was not always available. The council is now looking at using alternative funding to deliver supervised play and make the facilities more accessible for all.
In Bradford, the holiday play scheme attracted 70 children with disabilities in the year to March 2009, against a target of 200. The authority found that parents of disabled children did not always want them to access mainstream play or open play facilities. It is now considering bringing in further partner organisations to help engage with families.
Kevin Clark says, 'For example, the Big Swing has an open access policy, but I remember one boy with Special Educational Needs who kept running away. However, staff couldn't close the gate, as it went against the whole ethos of the playground. Eventually staff were able to build the boy's confidence by having his carer stay on site until he was happy to play there without running away.'
The study found that most authorities were engaging or consulting with children and families when developing their play strategy, designing individual facilities or asking for feedback on facilities. They found the funding enabled them to carry out more consultations than usual with children and young people, resulting in provision that was led by local demand.
In Solihull, a group of children who helped to design play provision visited a play area in Wolverhampton to get ideas. Bradford consulted 1,000 children and young people, asking them their issues and priorities in play.
Working Families’ Survey on Summer Holiday Care for Disabled Children
Nearly 70% of parents of disabled children surveyed by Working Families said that finding appropriate childcare during the summer holidays was a barrier to their paid work.
Working Families, the national charity which, uniquely, helps parents balance their work commitments and their home responsibilities, carried out a survey this summer. They asked members of our Waving not drowning network of parents of disabled children who work or wish to work about their experiences of finding and using summer holiday care for their disabled children. Parents felt that the childcare available did not meet their children’s needs. It was difficult to find out what was available. It was too far from their homes, didn’t cover the hours they needed to enable them to work and cost too much.
The Council for Disabled Children (CDC) has had long-standing concerns about the use of eligibility criteria in social care services for disabled children and their families.
The Islington judgement delivered in March this year provided some further clarity in this area. CDC has now issued their understanding of the judgement, see link below.
Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan today launched a new facility on myguide, a free and easy-to-use tool to help parents and carers catch up with their children when it comes to the Internet.
myguide helps provide the next step in the Government’s implementation of Dr Tanya Byron’s review of internet safety. myguide can be used independently, with the support of a friend or family member, or with help from experts in one of the thousands of UK online centres based in libraries and community organisations.
Children's charity Whizz-Kidz was singled out by Tory leader David Cameron today as he set out his vision for the NHS during a visit to Bolton.
Mr Cameron cited the Whizz-Kidz and Tower Hamlets primary care trust (PCT) model for wheelchair provision for disabled children as a leading example of how genuine partnership working can deliver in the NHS.
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Alwen Williams OBE, NHS Tower Hamlets chief executive, said: "Our partnership with Whizz-Kidz is providing an exceptional service to disabled children and young people in the borough. The best in healthcare is often achieved by working together with other organisations.
"As such Whizz-Kidz and Tower Hamlets PCT have created a model that health services around the country can follow."
A children's play programme funded by the Big Lottery has allowed children to take part in more 'risky' and adventurous play, according to a new study.
In preliminary findings from a three-year evaluation of the Big Lottery Fund's Children's Play Programme, research consultancy ECOTEC found that it is enabling children to access more play than before, including 'new' forms such as sensory play and 'risky' or adventurous play.
The lottery has earmarked £124m for children's play over three years, with grants of £100,000 to £3m for 1,400 local authority projects for 'free, unstructured play'. It particularly targets disabled children and those living in rural areas and disadvantaged areas.
TOP marks have been given by Ofsted to two centres which offer short stays to disabled children and young people.
The Government watchdog described the two “bungalows” in Trackside Approach, Westhoughton, and Avondale Street, Bolton, as outstanding.
Somerset County Council and Somerset Primary Care Trust have joined forces to give families with children who have a disability the chance to air their views via a website.
By completing a short questionnaire, parents and carers can say what kind of short breaks they would like to see for themselves and for their children
Are you are a parent of a disabled child or a disabled parent? YoungMinds parent helpline wants to get parent’s views to find out about the emotional wellbeing of their your children, and what help has been offered if things get tough.
The Foundling Museum is hosting a temporary exhibition of around 25 illustrations by individual artists, each showing a variety of ways of portraying children with disabilities in children's books. They range from the subtle (leg braces that you don't even see the first time you look at the picture) to the direct (a fairy wearing crutches). Artists taking part include Quentin Blake and Jane Ray.
The second phase of the Childcare Affordability Programme will provide £12m to boost the take-up of childcare among low-income families in London.
Are you are a parent of a disabled child or a disabled parent? YoungMinds parent helpline wants to get parent’s views to find out about the emotional wellbeing of their your children, and what help has been offered if things get tough.
Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, today announced plans to strengthen inspection law so schools are assessed on how they support children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities.
Mr Balls also plans to give greater rights to parents unhappy with their child’s statement of SEN. This will give parents more say over the objectives set for their child.
Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan today launched a consultation on guidance on serious case reviews (SCR) in order to improve their quality, consistency and impact.
Pilot projects are helping children with disabilities access quality care, finds Annette Rawstrone.
Parents who are struggling to find suitable childcare for their disabled children are being assisted by a range of projects operating across England.
FAMILIES with disabled children in Worcestershire are being urged to get advice on what benefits they are entitled to.
There are about 8,600 disabled children living in the county and their families can face enormous financial challenges.
A DAD whose disabled daughter needs around the clock care has achieved his dream of becoming a teacher.
Sean O'Donnell was one of 28 trainees to receive congratulations for completing Redcar and Cleveland Council's year-long Graduate Teacher Training Programme at a presentation evening in Redcar Community College...
Specialising in maths, Sean trained at Freebrough Specialist Engineering College in Brotton, where he impressed principal Diane Edwards - so much so that he will begin working there as a maths teacher from September.
The Conservative leader reveals how his experiences have helped to shape his party's welfare policy
David Cameron's son Ivan was born with a profound disability, and his experience of looking after him has changed the way he see a lot of things – not just as a father, but as a politician, too. this was a steep learning curve, from which he learned five big lessons that have had a direct impact on what the conservative party wants to do in government for those with disabilities and their families. Read more via the link above.
The Conservative Party has pledged to support the Aiming High for Disabled Children agenda, and promised to make improvements in education, short breaks provision, and the benefits system.
Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove met with disabled children, young people and their families at an event arranged by campaign group Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) last week.
Thousands of disabled toddlers could benefit from a landmark ruling that agreed to grant a judicial review of mobility benefits for disabled children aged under three.
The supreme civil court of Scotland, the Court of Session, ruled that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) might be breaching European human rights laws by not paying mobility benefits to under-threes.
The government has updated guidance for police, teachers, health workers and social workers to protect disabled children from abuse and neglect.
The guidance has been produced by The Children's Society and will advise local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) and their relevant partners on how best to safeguard and promote the welfare of disabled children. It is intended to be used in line with the 2006 publication Working Together to Safeguard Children.
As part of Contact a Family's 30th birthday celebrations the Big Day Out will encourage and facilitate families with disabled children to get out and about and enjoy play and leisure together throughout the month of August.
Read more and access the Big Day Out toolkit via the above link.
Children’s Secretary, Ed Balls and Care Services Minister Phil Hope today announced a £5million package of measures to help improve services for children and young people with communication problems. A new Communication Champion is also being recruited to raise the profile of these issues.
This is part of a £12 million investment to implement the Government Action Plan, Better Communication.
PARENTS caring for disabled children have been given extra help to get back into work or training as part of an innovative pilot scheme run by Redbridge Council.
Twenty seven families from across the borough have taken part in the Special Needs and Opportunities with Childcare Affordability Programme (SNOWCAP), which assisted them with childcare costs so that they could try and get a job or attend college courses.
Parents who have already benefited from the programme met at the Child Development Centre in Barkingside for a celebratory event on Wednesday, July 1 to share their experiences.
Work has started on a state-of-the-art £460,000 residential unit for children and young people with disabilities.
The building at Nell Bank Outdoor Education Centre, Denton Road, Ilkley, will have room for up to 12 children with additional needs and their carers.
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Funding for the project has been awarded by Aiming High, a Government scheme to support projects for youngsters with disabilities. Bradford is leading the way with an overall £5 million pilot scheme.
The Department for Work and Pensions has launched a new-look website. Benefits and services information for citizens has moved to Directgov. The new DWP site presents DWP’s vision, aims and values, DWP news stories and press releases, consultations and policy development, publications, research and statistics, and information for a range of professional partners and stakeholders.
Cheryl Drury's work gaining play opportunities for disabled children has seen her become an Excellence Network champion. Anabel Unity Sale reports
As a rule, Cheryl Drury does not go to award ceremonies. Fortunately, a colleague convinced her to attend Community Care's Excellence Network, which was just as well: she was named one of Community Care's 10 social care champions thanks to her work with the Hamara Family Project in Waltham Forest, east London.
Hamara – which is part of Barnardo's – works with more than 370 local children with disabilities and their families. As project worker Drury is responsible for Hamara's HipHop initiative. The scheme, whose name stands for Hamara Inclusive Play Holiday Opportunities Project, works to help children with disabilities gain access to mainstream play activities.
They may be too young to vote but primary schoolchildren in the city were given a political voice during an event at Bath Spa University.
Almost 100 youngsters from 46 schools across Bath and North East Somerset took part in the first primary schools' parliament to talk about the issues affecting them.
The event, which was held at the Newton Park campus, saw the children appeal to B&NES Council for more support for disabled people and those who look after them.
click publication link for full article
A £2.9 million funding package will improve support available to disabled children in Bristol over the next two years.
Aiming High for Disabled Children is a Government project to invest in services for children with disabilities. National funding from both the Department of Children, Schools and Families and the Department of Health provides an opportunity to transform services for disabled children.
In Bristol, DCSF has allocated a £2.4m grant over the next two years to improve short break services.
Individual budgets could transform young disabled people's transition to adults' services, but if only if they are implemented with proper support. Corin Williams reports
The personalisation of social care offers disabled young people more independence, but it could also create more anxiety and confusion.
The central tenets of the personalisation revolution - person-centred planning, individual budgets and direct payments - are being slowly rolled out for all care groups, including for those making the transition from children's to adults' services. But the idea of having to cope with employing a personal assistant or looking around for the best deal at an already stressful time in their lives could be overwhelming for some disabled young people and their families.
Comedienne and actress Francesca Martinez, who has cerebral palsy, gave a moving and funny description of growing up and finding success in stand-up comedy and TV drama at a celebration to mark the move of Camden’s disabled children’s service to its new home.
Francesca, a former student of Parliament Hill School in Camden, was the main guest at the relaunch of Camden MOSAIC, the borough’s integrated service for disabled children who have severe and profound disabilities.
The service has moved to the new Kentish Town Health Centre, 2 Bartholomew Road, Kentish Town. Other services, such as the James Wigg GP practice, dentistry and breast screening, are based in the health centre too.
Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan today called upon front line professionals to work together to identify children at risk of sexual exploitation and take the best steps to keep them safe from harm.
Her call comes alongside the publication of new guidance, produced by the Department of Children, Schools and Families and the Home Office, advising local organisations on how to identify children at risk, protect them and take action against people intent on abusing and exploiting them.
guidance can be found at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/safeguardingandsocialcare/safeguardingchildren/safeguarding/
At a parliamentary reception yesterday (9 June 2009), the disabled children’s charity KIDS launched the new online short breaks service, KIDS Direct Short Breaks.
KIDS Direct Short Breaks puts booking a break directly in the hands of the family rather than the local authority, and allows families to tailor a break to suit their needs. The secure and easy to use website links parents to fully trained professionals who deliver positive activities for disabled children and young people, while their parents take a break.
Visit the website link above.
Encouraging young people to adopt healthy eating habits is a challenging task, but tackling the issue within a special school setting, where pupils may face a range of individual complex learning difficulties, can make that challenge even greater.
’Eat Better, Do Better: A practical guide to adopting a Whole School Approach to food in special schools’ is a new Guidance and CD resource produced in collaboration with Government Office for London, Government Office for the East of England, the School Food Trust and Healthy Schools.
The Guidance and CD resource aims to support health professionals, teachers and school staff in special school settings to adopt a ‘whole school approach’ to promoting healthier eating amongst students with special educational needs and disabilities.
Se publication link for more details
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Autism is calling on councils to improve the support they give young people with autism as they make the transition into adulthood.
Its latest report, which is released today (June 9), concludes that councils and health services are failing to provide adequate transitional support.
The report echoes the view of the National Autistic Society (NAS), which advises the group.
New services for disabled children are making a difference to families across the county.
The Aiming High programme has been up and running in Gloucestershire for a year now to improve short breaks for disabled children. Part of this project is the community lead professional team which works directly with disabled children and their families. The team carries out a holistic assessment of the family’s needs and helps them get additional support.
Karen Stephens, 40, from Bishops Cleeve is a mum of four boys. Her second son, Michael, 14, has severe autism with learning disabilities and very challenging behaviour. Until recently, the family had no help. Now thanks to the county council’s community lead professional team, Michael attends after school clubs twice a week and has enrolled onto a holiday playscheme, giving Karen and her other sons a much-needed break.
SCOTTISH scientists are helping to unlock the silent world of children suffering from cerebral palsy and other serious disabilities where there are major barriers to communication. They have developed a software system to enable children who cannot speak to hold conversations.
The prototype system has been developed as a result of a year-long research project involving computing experts from Aberdeen and Dundee universities and Capability Scotland, one of the country's leading charities for the disabled.
The system, "How was school today?", has been developed to allow the children to communicate by linking a voice-generating computer to a system of sensors on their wheelchair that records where they have been, and swipe cards which record the people they have met and the activities in which they have been involved.
The Children's Workforce Development Council has published new standards for the assessment and training of short break carers of disabled children.
The standards cover six key areas, including effective communication, child development, self-development and keeping young people safe from harm.
They apply to all carers covered under the Fostering Services Regulations (2002), which refers to people who offer day or overnight care of disabled children and those with complex health needs, primarily in the carer's home.
Primary care trusts will be held to account over their spending on short breaks for disabled children, children’s secretary Ed Balls said today.
Balls told a conference organised by the Council for Disabled Children that in September all PCTs would be required to report on how much of a £340m funding allocation for 2008-11 they would be spending on short breaks.
The funding, from the Department of Health, matches the £340m allocated by the Department for Children, Schools and Families to English councils for disabled children's services over the same period, as part of the government's Aiming High for Disabled Children programme.
Disabled children's charity Whizz-Kidz hopes to improve services for young people who use wheelchairs through a new all-party parliamentary group launched this week.
The charity is sponsoring the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Paediatric Mobility, which will be chaired by Tony Wright, the Labour MP for Great Yarmouth, and hopes to establish links with other parliamentary groups focusing on related issues.
Whizz-Kidz public affairs manager Sally Waters said the government had invested in the sector through its Aiming High programme and the Child Health Strategy, which was published in February. But she said that funding wasn't necessarily ringfenced and paediatric wheelchair services were often connected with adult services.
Disabled children will have a fun summer in Brightlingsea, after a wheelchair-friendly ride was unveiled last weekend.
The Western Promenade play area is now equipped with a specialist roundabout which can be used by youngsters in both wheelchairs and pushchairs.
Funding for the new ride was split between Brightlingsea Town Council and Tendring Council, which both put £5,000 into the project.
A new study has found that one in 100 children between the ages of five and nine are autistic.
The research, due to be published in the June issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, was carried out by the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, led by Professor Simon Baron-Cohen.
His team used three different methods to estimate the prevalence of autism-spectrum conditions (including previously undiagnosed cases) in Cambridgeshire.
IT'S well known as Prince Philip's favourite sport – and now young disabled people are riding high themselves thanks to the efforts of a hardworking Sheffield charity.
The youngsters are being given the chance to go carriage driving, with the help of volunteers based at Windmill Hill Farm in Chapeltown.
The more able ones are given the chance to take the reins themselves, experience the excitement of basic horse power and can even help in looking after the ponies.
The new patron of a cerebral palsy charity is hoping that his own adventures will help inspire others to show them that the condition doesn't have to hold them back.
Despite being born with CP, Stuart Boreham took part in the BT Global Challenge round-the-world yacht race in 1996/7 and also became the first disabled person to row single-handed across the Atlantic in 2004.
And he is now a patron of the Rainbow Centre in Fareham, which cares for children with CP and other motor skill problems.
Charity the Disabled Living Foundation has launched an advice and information website on equipment for children and young people with disabilities.
The site, Living Made Easy for Children, aims to bring together information on every product for children and young people with disabilities into one place. Advice and information has been put together by occupational therapists.
The site's development was funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
http://www.livingmadeeasy.org.uk/children/
Britain has an estimated six million carers — the unpaid relatives and friends who look after an ill, frail or disabled person. Yet Carers UK, the charity, says that the majority of these people do not realise that they are carers and that they may be entitled to help from the State and other sources.
See the publication link for The Times Money’s guide to the financial and other support that is available, and where to go for further information.
Charity Kids is launching an online short breaks booking service for families of children with disabilities.
Called Kids Direct Short Breaks, the service aims to be as user-friendly as established holiday booking websites. Families can set up an online account and are asked to give their likes and dislikes of holiday types and destinations. This is then used to provide a breakdown of suitable holidays.
An NCB spokeswoman said: "Users can view the profiles of short break providers, see what's on offer and book what they want. It uses the latest technology to make life easier for families with disabled children."
Developed as part of the DCSF’s (Department for Children, Schools and Families) work to update its portfolio of websites, the new site provides a single channel for information aimed at professionals within the children's workforce.
The new site incorporates the best and most useful functionality from each of the three former sites: Every Child Matters, Local Authorities and Sure Start.
These three original websites will be kept online for a short period to ensure a smooth transfer for users to the new site but will not be updated with any new content from today. For up-to-date content and the latest news and information, go direct to the new ECM site. (See publication link)
I is for Inequality
'Inclusion is a process of identifying, understanding and breaking down barriers to participation and belonging'
Early Childhood Forum (2003)
There is no doubt that poverty and social inequalities in childhood have profound effects on the health of children. The poorer the child, the more likely they are to have health problems and increased rates of disability and ill-health. We know that the health of the mother has a profound effect on the health of her children and that this impact continues through life. We also know there are stark differences in poverty rates according to ethnic group, with poverty highest for Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Black Africans, but also above average for Caribbean, Indian and Chinese people.
Individuals or families can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities, and have the living conditions and amenities that are customary in the societies to which they belong.
Research demonstrates a strong relationship between low income, social exclusion and disability among families who have a disabled child. They are more than twice as likely as other families to be unable to afford five or more everyday items. From a major survey of over 1,800 families with disabled children, only 6 per cent reported they were 'comfortably off', with 93 per cent reporting some form of financial difficulty.
Click publication link for full article.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry, Minister for Children, Schools and Families today announced the results of the first ever national survey of parents’ views of services for disabled children.
On average, parents rated the services for their disabled child as 59 out of 100, providing the Government and local areas with the first ever tangible base point from which to track progress or changes in perceptions and experience in future years on services for disabled children, covering health, education and social care.
The score means that local areas can track their progress and means that families can expect to see further improvement as local areas benefit from the ground-breaking Aiming High for Disabled Children programme and the resources Government is investing in transforming services for disabled children.
A young boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has enlisted the help of leading children's services councillor - Tony Gosling to help spread the message about his condition in a bid to try and dispel the myths and help raise awareness of his condition.
ADHD is a neurobehavioral development disorder. It affects about three to five per cent of children with symptoms starting before seven years of age.
Bradlei Byrne (age 10) has designed a leaflet 'How I Cope with ADHD' - to help people help him and others with the condition. See the link below.
Online directory will help frontline professionals see other services involved with a child.
Frontline professionals will start using ContactPoint - the Government’s online directory of children’s services - from next week, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls and Children’s Minister Delyth Morgan announced today.
Up to 800 frontline practitioners including social workers, health professionals and head teachers will start using the system from next week. They are based in 17 local authorities in the North West and national voluntary sector partners Barnardo’s and KIDS.
For the first time, professionals - who have all been through stringent security measures and training - can see in one place some of the different services involved with a child they are working with and start to feel some of the early benefits ContactPoint will offer them.
DOWNING Street was the destination for a student from Meldreth Manor School last week.
David Reynolds, 13, visited the home of Prime Minister Gordon Brown on behalf of disability charity Scope. He delivered a box of letters to Mr Brown, asking him to improve support for children with health conditions in schools.
Afterwards David, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, said: "I was really pleased to go to Downing Street. I hope we manage to make people realise that many children with health conditions don't receive the support they need and don't get their needs met."
A FUNDAY with adapted rides for children with special needs which faced the axe after council officials closed the normal venue has been saved.
Up to 400 kids from Selly Oak Trust School faced being disappointed after their annual funday was cancelled.
For the last five years the school, which caters for children with special needs, was provided with a free day at a funfair held in Cannon Hill Park, where rides are adapted to suit their needs.
The fair was banned this year due to on-going maintenance work at the park, but groups of Masons that organise the event insisted on finding a suitable alternative.
Health Secretary Alan Johnson is urging schools and health trusts to improve the support they give to children with asthma.
Asthma is set to be a focus of the government's forthcoming strategy on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and Johnson said he is keen to see support offered at the earliest opportunity.
In development is a children's asthma best practice guide for schools, councils and health trusts to ensure children have access to support services quickly and close to their homes.
The Government today announced a wide ranging package of measures setting out how it will deliver the step-change in child protection called for by Lord Laming in his recent progress report. The action plan commits to greater openness and public scrutiny of local child protection arrangements, as well as more investment in training and support for front line social workers. This reform will be driven forward by a new cross-Government delivery unit working alongside Sir Roger Singleton, the first ever Chief Adviser on the Safety of Children.
Phase two of the IDP has been developed by the National Strategies in partnership with the Autism Centre for Education and Research (ACER) at the University of Birmingham.
This resource aims to secure improved educational outcomes for pupils on the autism spectrum in all schools and early years settings.
The materials will support classroom teachers, teaching assistants and those in initial teacher training, to further develop quality first teaching, while enabling school leaders to adopt a strategic approach to personalised learning and to narrow the gaps for pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN).
The IDP supports the evaluation of skills and provides opportunities for collaborative professional development to help ensure that quality first teaching means quality for all.
The materials are available online from the DCSF website (see publication link) and DVDs were distributed to schools and settings via local authorities from April.
Canon's House, a respite care home for children with disabilities, has been judged outstanding by Ofsted for the fifth year running.
The Wiltshire Council run home, in Belle Vue Road, Devizes, provides short term residential breaks for children aged between 12 and 18 who are severely disabled and have life limiting conditions. About 50 families use the home.
The inspector who carried out this year’s annual Ofsted inspection stated that the home is very family focused and is “warm, welcoming and friendly.”
Children's mental health services need an extra 1,000 therapists to help them cope with demand, an influential government adviser has warned.
Lord Layard, whose advice prompted a recent £173m investment in adult therapists, said training of child specialists should start in 2010.
Over a three-year period, his proposals would cost £35m, his report said.
A CHARITY set up in memory of a musical little York girl who died of a brain tumour will mark the 15th anniversary of her death with a reception at Westminster tomorrow.
Comedian Victoria Wood will be a guest speaker and introduce a short film about the work of Jessie’s Fund, of which she is patron...
It [the charity] now works with children in hospices nationwide, providing a wide range of musical instruments and giving the children access to creative music-making and music therapy. It also works in schools for children with special needs, hospitals, and other centres for children with special needs.
Leading UK children’s palliative care charity ACT has today (30 April 2009) launched a new and updated edition of A Guide to the Development of Children’s Palliative Care Services. This new resource, now in its third edition, has been described as an invaluable tool for professionals who are concerned with developing, providing or commissioning services for children who have life-limiting or life-threatening health conditions.
Research into young people with complex and extensive needs must be undertaken to ensure there are no gaps in provision, according to an expert in residential care.
Jonathan Stanley, manager of the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care (NCERCC), is calling on local authorities to complete a study into children and young people with high-level needs in their area in relation to placements available for this group.
Over a three month period North East Lincolnshire Council held a number of consultation events. They received
over 427 comments from the parents/carers, young people and workers.
They have issued a newsletter which brings together the over-arching themes expressed in the consultation and responses to comments, which include:
- Relationship building
- Information provision
- Equality of access and service provision
- Staff training
- Town planning and transport
To view the newsletter please click the link below.
Each local authority has a legal requirement to collect information about children and young people with special needs and disabilities. This is so they can monitor, plan and provide services that meet the needs of those children and young people. Plan Together will be the tool that is used for the collection of this information.
At present North East Lincolnshire council does not have enough information from families and their children about their requirements. If services are to develop we need to collect information that can then inform the shape, size and type of service. The council is therefore encouraging parents and carers to join the database.
Comedian Jo Brand is one of a number of BIG names backing a nationwide appeal to recruit more short breaks carers to spend time with disabled children and give their families a regular break from the demands of caring.
The BIG Breaks campaign, which is to be launched in ‘Share the Care Week’ next week (15th-22nd March), aims to DOUBLE the number of disabled children in the UK getting short break services to 20,000 by the year 2012. The campaign which is coordinated by charity Shared Care Network aims to recruit over 7,000 new short break carers for the 10,000 children and their families UK-wide who currently do not get breaks.
The Early Support is the Government’s recommended way of delivering integrated services for young disabled children and their families. The programme has successfully developed into a mainstream programme, with 90% of local authorities (LAs) are either involved in it or in the early stages of using it to implement service change.
The above DCSF link connects you to a letter from Beverly Hughes, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, thanking local authorities for their role in implementing and mainstreaming the Early Support Programme. The letter also signals the Government’s continued commitment to the Early Support Programme.
Attached is a letter to Directors of Children's Services, LA Chief Executives and LA Finance colleagues from Frances Carter, Team Leader, Early Years, Extended Schools and Special Needs Group. the letter sets out the funding and payment arrangements for the 2009-10 Sure Start, Early Years & Childcare Grant (SSEYCG) and Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) and also the terms of grant which local authorities will need to accept before any funding is released.
The Government today published its long term vision of a 21st Century children’s health service aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of all children, including £340 million to support children with disabilities and their families.
Together with funding previously announced this brings the total investment in services for disabled children over the next three years to a record £770 million.
For more information and to download the The Strategy for Children and Young People's Health please click the above link.
The attached letter (DCSF Link) from Sarah McCarty-Fry, the Minister with responsibility for special educational needs (SEN) and disability, sets out some of the work that is going on in this area.
It focusses on the Lamb Inquiry into parental confidence in SEN processes, assessment and provision, highlights what the National Strategies are doing to help local authorities meet their SEN statutory duties and emphasises the importance the Minister attaches to local authorities meeting their SEN and disability duties.
The government has today responded to Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) campaigning by announcing a childcare affordability pilot scheme that will pay an increased level of working tax credit to parents of disabled children.
For more information please visit the EDCM link above.
The Government today set out plans to make sure every child gets the best start in life by tackling child poverty which can unfairly hold children back and prevent them from reaching their full potential.
And today the Government is launching a consultation ahead of a Child Poverty Bill which will enshrine in legislation the Government’s promise to eradicate child poverty by 2020 and mean the Government will be held to account on the success of ending child poverty.
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls and Health Secretary Alan Johnson today announced the membership of the Social Work Taskforce, set up to undertake a comprehensive review of frontline social work practice.
The Social Work Taskforce has been asked to identify any barriers social workers face in doing their jobs effectively and has been asked to make recommendations for improvements and long-term reform in social work. One of its first priorities will be to carry out a review of the effectiveness of Integrated Children’s Systems and the IT used by social workers to keep records of their cases.
Click on the link to read more.
Ministers have announced that the DCSF will today begin the first delivery phase of ContactPoint.
Please click the link to view/download a copy of the Written Ministerial Statement that was laid in Parliment today and the letter that was issued to local authorities.
ContactPoint is a tool to help practitioners ensure that no child slips through the net of support services.
The Family Fund is a national charity which gives grants to families with disabled children. They have recently increased the age limit of children they can help in England to include 17 year olds, providing the application is received before the young person's 18th birthday. This brings it in line with the eligiblity criteria for Wales.
In Northern Ireland and Scotland the age limit of children and young people they can help is 16 years of age or under, providing the application is received before the 17th birthday.
KIDS, the Disabled Children and Young People’s Charity received over £800,000 of funding from the Children, Young People and Families grant programme, results of which were announced on the 24th of December, for two of its pioneering projects which focus on the inclusion of disabled children and young people into mainstream services and everyday activities.
Please click on the LINK for further information.
Young people with special needs are being encouraged to submit bright ideas to help other disabled children.
For the Ready Willing and Mobile competition 2009, the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (MFPA) has linked with the competition organiser, the charity Mobility Choice, to sponsor an additional prize for the best entry from a young person with a disability, to encourage young disabled artists.
Together for Disabled Children have three job vacancies for Regional Co-ordinators.
They are temporary positions - 2 months, 37 hours per week.
Below is the link to the job description. If you would like more information or to apply, please contact kim.smith@togetherforchildren.co.uk. Agencies need not apply.
Closing date for applicants is 28 January. Interviews are being held on 2 February 2008 in Birmingham.
Parent groups in 97% of English local authority areas have now been allocated funding to help them have a say in planning and shaping disabled children’s services.
In just two months parents with disabled children in 145 of the 150 local authority areas were successful in bidding for grants to help them get involved in local decision making.
Over the next year a further £1.5 million is available to parent groups to develop participation activity across England, as part of the Aiming High for Disabled Children (AHDC) programme.
To read more on this press release please refer to the document within the link.
Director of the Council for Disabled Children (CDC), Christine Lenehan has been appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her work with disabled children and their families for over thirty years. As director of CDC and board member of the Every Disabled Child Matters (EDCM) campaign, Christine has been at the vanguard of her field - raising the policy profile of disabled children and young people.
To read Christine's comments please click on the above link.
The British Market Research Bureau will be sending out thousands of ‘Health and Well being’ questionnaires to families in January on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
Information from the questionnaire will be used to find families to take part in a further survey, in spring, about disabled children’s services. Parents answers will be used to develop a National Indicator for disabled children, which will measure the performance of each local authority’s disabled children’s services.
The ‘Health and Well being’ questionnaire is being sent out to make sure families who are currently not receiving any services are included in the survey as well as those that are. Families chosen to complete the survey will be spread across each local area and have children with a range of disabilities.
Please refer to the above link for a Q & A document
Children with conditions such as cerebral palsy, cancer, stroke and brain damage could be taking their first steps with the help of an Oxfordshire local charity Footsteps Foundation.
Private therapy is difficult for most families to afford, so this charity has been launched to help children by paying for physiotherapy at the Footsteps Centre. The Centre provides intensive physiotherapy for disabled children with neurological conditions.
Families come from all over the UK can attend daily physiotherapy for three week programmes at a time. Equipment at the centre includes the Spider, which enables therapists to implement a full course of exercises in any chosen position and to align the body by using a series of elastic ropes.
The charity aims to raise £500,000 and needs the support of local individuals, clubs, groups and businesses to help even more children learn to walk.
Do you know a child who could benefit from intensive physiotherapy? For more information please visit the above link or contact pip@footstepsfoundation.com, Tel: 01865 858 382
Sue Gower, 48, from East Wickham, was awarded an MBE in the Queen's New Year Honours last Thursday for her voluntary services to disabled children and young people in Bexley.
Mrs Gower said the MBE is a tribute to her son, Dave, who died in January 2006 aged just 21.
Langley House Children’s Home, Dovercourt, opened in 2004 and takes care of youngsters with almost any disability.
It has become so successful that it has bought two bungalows that back onto its site off Old Vicarage Road.
One of the bungalows provides a home for children with autism, the other serves as a dwelling for those who are more dependant and who may rely on a wheelchair.
He read more about this news story please click on the above link.
MANOEUVRING a wheelchair down a narrow corridor, through swing doors and having nowhere to park it are everyday problems at Ivy House School. But not for much longer, after everyone moves lock, stock and barrel to the new site in Littleover.
To read more about Ivy House and how it has modernised its resources and made history by becoming one of the first special schools in the country to share a site with a mainstream school, click on the above link.
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A seven year old with Down's Syndrome was given the opportunity of a lifetime when a national charity backed by the Islington Gazette invited her to meet Prince Charles. Isabella Costello joined 11 other sick and disabled children invited by charities Caudwell Children and The Helen and Douglas House Hospice to decorate the Royal Christmas tree at Clarence House, the residential home of The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.
To read more please click on the above link.
A mother who fought a six-year compensation battle for her son is hoping to help other parents struggling to care for their disabled children with the launch of a new website.
To read more please click on the link above.
It has been five years since the only dedicated children’s hospice in Sussex opened its doors.
Health Reporter SIOBHAN RYAN looks at how it has turned into a vital service for hundreds of families across the county and its plans for the future.
The government has launched a £19m scheme to support disabled young people into adulthood.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry, minister for schools and learners, unveiled the Aiming High for Disabled Children Transition Support Programme for disabled young people aged 14 to19 yesterday (2 December).
Generous Evening Telegraph readers have so far donated about 150 presents to put smiles on the faces of disadvantaged children this Christmas.
Last month, they teamed up with radio station Connect FM and Northamptonshire County Council to encourage people to support this year's Gift Appeal for children at the county's three care homes, disabled children, foster children and those on the child protection register.
Specialist services for deaf children have declined generally in recent years, but Kent is showing what can be done with a small dedicated team.
Famous faces have joined together to support a charity appeal to help provide disabled children in the region with mobility equipment.
Georgia Slowe who plays Perdita Hyde-Sinclair in Emmerdale and Ewen MacIntosh who played Keith in The Office, are supporting the Rising Starz campaign by the Yorkshire Building Society in aid of Whizz-Kidz.
As reported by Carers UK, EDCM welcomes the decision by the Employment Tribunal in London which has ruled that protection for carers against discrimination “by association with disability” can be given under existing UK law. This paves the way for carers, including parents of disabled children, to make immediate claims against their employers if they are treated unfairly.
A passionate paediatric physiotherapist has gone the extra mile - to America - to help children with disabilities and terminal illnesses.
Linda Berwick, who works at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust, is one of a band of volunteers who use their own time to take sick and profoundly disabled children on a “holiday of a lifetime” to the theme parks in Florida.
The ‘Saturday Activity Club’ run by the Newcastle Toy & Leisure Library twice a month at Hadrian School, Newcastle, had been under threat after funding was withdrawn earlier this year.
But a grant of £12,000 over two years from the Community Foundation means the service will be able to continue.
The club provides a key facility for disabled children and their families to enjoy sports and other activities in a safe environment.
Deaf and disabled children are being given the chance to take part in fun games of football after a club in Corby was given deaf-friendly status.
A BUILDING which provides vital short breaks for learning disabled children and adults has benefited from a £40,000 facelift.
Luton's disadvantaged children could benefit from a Phyzzikids sensory unit, if a bid for funding is successful next week.
KidsOut, the charity behind Phyzzikids, will appear on ITV Anglia evening news on Tuesday night, November 25, to say why it should be picked to receive dosh from the Big Lottery Fund's People's Millions.
Children’s Minister Beverley Hughes today announced a ‘Think Fathers’ campaign to dispel the myth that dads are the ‘invisible parent’. Research the Government is publishing today shows that public, health and family services across the board need to go much further in recognising and working with fathers.
THOUSANDS of disabled children could soon have a new £50,000 playground, but the project's fate will be decided by the public.
Voters will be able to phone in on Tuesday, November 25, to nominate We Play Too! – a project to install a brand new playground for children with disabilities at Brooklands pleasure park – for a £50,000 lottery grant.
Five severely disabled children facing family breakdowns are having to wait to get care in Luton. The council wants to increase the general support available to families with disabled children and has a new commissioning strategy to invest in ways to support them; this is part of the national Aiming High Strategy for Disabled Children programme which has ring-fenced funding for short-break provision in settings such as children's centres, childcare and extended schools as well as overnight and specialist short break provision in shared care familybased resources.
Do you have a child with complex medical needs who you have to look after at home? Are you looking after a severely disabled child and trying to get them into Fairway? Contact the Council newsdesk on 01582 707707.
DISABLED youngsters can show off their sporting prowess at multi-sports day at Woodford Lodge High School.
Cerebral Palsy Sport is hosting the event next Monday, November 10, for all children with physical disabilities, cerebral palsy or who have suffered head injury or strokes.
A special needs school in Hastings has become the first in the county to achieve a top accreditation from the National Autistic Society.
Torfield School has received the prestigious Autism Accreditation award for its work with primary age children with autism and for its wider work providing advice, support and guidance to mainstream primary schools elsewhere in East Sussex.
ALEX BELL is a remarkable single woman – she has adopted enough children to fill a minibus.
And every one of her eight children is disabled.
Seven of them have Down’s syndrome — some with complications including autism and heart defects.
The other has neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition affecting the nervous system.
AHOY, me hearties, a ship has come ashore - and now dozens of little ones can have some fun.
A shipwreck play structure for children with special needs was completed on Thursday, and it was quickly given a big thumbs-up.
DCSF will assess areas for selection for small-scale study. Individual care budgets are to be piloted for disabled children and their families in a groundbreaking scheme due to begin in January.
Disabled children will soon be able to enjoy short breaks away from home in a new state-of-the-art centre in Armley.
Leeds City Council and the Leeds Independent Living Accommodation Company (LiLAC) have signed a contract to deliver a short break unit in Armley.
Construction is due to begin in January 2009, with completion planned for February 2010.
SEFTON Council is to launch a scheme to help families with disabled children find appropriate childcare.
Around £425,000 has been secured by the authority for the first of the three year ‘Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare’ pilot.
The Government project aims to address the concerns of working parents of some of the most challenging children who find they cannot get childcare.
In Islington, the Hayward Adventure Playground's equipment for disabled children is a positive example of how to engage disabled children in play. Hollander, the playground's play co-ordinator, helped build a bed-like swing to give young wheelchair users the chance to experience the sensation of swinging. Please click on the link to read more....
Olympic swimmer and star of Strictly Come Dancing visited Heathrow Airport on Sunday to send of around 200 seriously disabled and ill children on a British Airways Dreamflight to Florida.
Mark Foster was among other celebrities including Sir Cliff Richard, Chico and Patsy Palmer, who all attended the airport in order to wave off the children who were participating in this once-in-a-lifetime holiday.
Dreamflight is a 22 year-old UK charity which was set up, by British Airways cabin crew, to help seriously ill and disabled children enjoy a holiday abroad.
The Campaign to End Child Poverty has been heard loud and clear. Ten thousand people joined a historic rally on Saturday 4th October demanding that the government Keep the Promise to eradicate child poverty by 2020.
And since the event, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has met with campaigners and said that he will make it a duty of the government to do just that.
For those that couldn't make the rally, you can sign the End Child Poverty online pledge which will be delivered to Downing Street.
Parents of children with special education needs and disabilities in Portsmouth are set to benefit from a government spending pledge.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls announced a package of measures to support parents' involvement in the planning local services for disabled children, committing £5m over three years.
Proceeds from a “Day of Decadence” for local women will benefit The Legacy Rainbow House.
Rainbow House, in Eccleston near Chorley, helps children — who have a range of disabilities — from all over the area, including Bolton.
Two youngsters with learning disabilities have won awards recognising their efforts to overcome their conditions.
Smacking, fostering and provisions for looked-after children in custody were all on the agenda for discussion. To view The Bill and more please click the above link.
Aiming High for Disabled Children should transform services. Joe Lepper asks whether parents and professionals in Leicester have seen a difference. Life for families with disabled children is a constant struggle, with support in areas such as short breaks and childcare woefully lacking.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families has confirmed the roles of their two newest members today, as Baroness Delyth Morgan becomes the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families, while Sarah McCarthy-Fry is now the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Schools and Learners
Brent Council is sending parents and carers a questionnaire to fill out to see how they can improve the short breaks they provide for youngsters with a disability.
It is part of a million pound improvement plan, AHDC which will kick off in the next four years.
Bradford Council has moved a step closer to creating a school dedicated to serving children with autism and severe communication difficulties.
The authority has announced plans for a Communication and Interaction Special School (CISS) to be opened in refurbished and adapted buildings currently used by Thorn Park School for the Deaf at Thorn Lane in Heaton, Bradford, which is set to close.
Ten English councils are to pilot a series of celebration events to recognise the contribution young people make in their communities.
Bournemouth, Bradford, Brent, Cornwall, Derbyshire, Hillingdon, Oxfordshire, Poole, Suffolk and Warrington plan to stage the events next February. Please read on..........
Annual Gloucestershire Youth Games for disabled children from schools throughout the county of Gloucestershire were held at the Oxstalls Indoor Tennis Centre ....“It is an exciting time with a lot of development in Disability Sport in Gloucestershire and more and more opportunities arising for young people”.
A CHILDREN’S home in York for disabled young people has been judged by inspectors as “outstanding”.
The Glen Short Breaks Home, in Clifton, provides short breaks for severely disabled young people for overnights and weekends. Young people enjoy a stimulating and caring environment, while their parents are able to enjoy a short break. Ofsted’s latest inspection praised the work.......
Keys Childcare, one of the largest providers of specialist residential and education services in the country, last week opened a new children's residential service called "Aqua8" in the former Fenland Care children's home at the River Cottage in Leadenhall Lane.
The home can be used by those with severe disabilities whose carers need to take a break, and by young people involved in unplanned breakdowns with foster families....
LOCAL hero Geraldine Greene was acclaimed as a ‘community champion’ when she took centre stage at the Labour party conference.
Geraldine, current holder of the Bury Woman of the Year title, was thrust before a packed audience of delegates to tell them about her work for the needy in Bury.
People with learning disabilities are to get more choice and control over where and how they receive the support they need.
Those in residential homes are to be asked where they want to live and what they want to do.
Devon County Council and Devon Primary Care Trust, beginning with Guinness Care and Support, want to find out how people could have more more choice and control over their services.
Knowsley Borough Council’s Celebration of Achievement awards will be held on Tuesday 7th October. All of the schools in the borough of Knowsley have been invited, and along with other services they have selected a number of children and young people to represent them and to receive awards.
MAJOR plans for a £6m transformation of facilities for youngsters at Mansfield's historic Westfield Folk House have been revealed.
The 'exciting' development would boast an open air court for basketball and five-a-side football, a sensory garden, a pavilion area for disabled youngsters to play bowls and a cafe bar, kitchen and offices.
Said Mansfield mayor Tony Egginton: "I am delighted to see that the Westfield Folk House will justly receive not only a makeover, but have the facilities extended to accommodate the diverse needs of the young people of our community.
"The revamp promises to utilise the space in a proactive way, enabling young people improved access to nurture their talents, as well as active support and assistance for young people who face challenging circumstances.
East London is having a Paralympic day in October where disabled children will get a chance to try out different sports.
This is part of seeling out new talent for 2012 and beyond.
THE countdown to the London 2012 Paralympic Games has begun with kids in London’s East End celebrating at their own handover.
Watching the event live on a big screen were 100 schoolchildren with disabilities or special needs gathered at East London’s Mile End leisure centre, just two miles down the road from the 2012 Olympics site at Stratford.
A Chiswick-based charity which supports disabled children and their parents is calling for a slice of a special budget to be spent on a new disabled play area.
SIX new Lottery-backed play schemes for Swindon children have been launched. A total of £382,000 of Lottery money has been bagged to extend and create play opportunities across the town.
The Richard Jefferies Adventure Playground Inclusive Play scheme, which will provide a structure for disabled children and young people, was given £29,000 of Lottery cash.
THE 2008 Gloucestershire Youth Games is aimed to give all disabled pupils a high quality sporting experience, with all activities adapted to suit each individual participants needs.
Top award goes to the family of a disabled East Goscote girl who wrote a book telling how she coped with cerebral palsy
A NEW hydrotherapy and activity building could help hundreds of people with severe learning difficulties in the Forest of Dean.
Disabled children living in West London have been invited to join a new youth club.
THERE seems a bright future now for the Ashbourne Playaway Playscheme. After the News Telegraph highlighted the desperate need for new helpers to maintain this holiday scheme for disabled and special needs children, the organiser has been flooded with offers, along with financial assistance.
The Playscheme is particularly grateful to the main funder, Aiming high for Disabled Children, which has grant aided the scheme.
Professionals who work with disabled or disadvantaged children are being invited to apply for grants to help them travel abroad to learn new skills. Further details about the Lady Allen of Hurtwood Travel Awards can be found within the link above.
Families caring for sons/daughters with severe learning disabilities can now receive individual telephone support around understanding and managing challenging behaviour for the cost of a local call.
Free support workshops for disabled children and their parents will be taking place in the West Midlands thanks to a grant of nearly £187,000 from the Big Lottery Fund.
All special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) will have to complete accredited training from 2009, according to schools minister Lord Andrew Adonis.
The Council for Disabled Children exists to promote the inclusion of disabled children and young people across all mainstream services. In its latest policy it sets out the principles that every service provider should seek to uphold.
The Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children and Young People’s Services launched by Beverley Hughes, will gather together and analyse national, regional and local knowledge about what works in tackling issues such as improving the wellbeing of looked after and disabled children. The Centre will provide an offer of tailored, specialised advice and support to local authorities on how to use tried and tested approaches to address the individual challenges of their area.
Get Together Training is designed and tailored to
meet the needs of people, services and organisations
that wish to explore and develop ways in which they
can work in a more accessible and inclusive way.
A NEW £3 million centre in Dorchester for disabled children has been app-roved by planners.
The new centre, for the charity organisation Dorch-ester Opportunity Group, will provide facilities for 50 children with disabilities or special needs.
Councils could be required by law to help disabled children stay on in education until 18.
Jo Stephenson investigates a campaigning project for parents, run by TreeHouse, which aims to ease the tension
PROJECT Surfable is being launched through a network of surf schools across England at the White Stuff Surf Relief Festival in Newquay next weekend.
It will provide opportunities for hundreds of disabled children to ride waves on some of the country's most beautiful beaches. The schools in the network are to provide an experience of a lifetime in a safe environment.
The Task Force has produced this guide for commissioners to be able to identify the services that are best able to meet vulnerable people's needs, and are proved to work. The guide is aimed at professionals who have direct responsibility for designing, commissioning, providing or managing services for vulnerable groups, in order to make informed decisions when commissioning projects
This is the first newsletter about 'Aiming High for Disabled Children' for people working with disabled children and their families in Northumberland. It will be published every two months during the Aiming High Programme to keep you up to date with developments.
The following letter 'Three Year Allocations Arising From the Children's Plan'. was sent to LA Chief Executives and LA Finance Contacts. The letter provides details to LAs of their allocations for a range of initiatives.
This includes additional funding of £35 million for the period 2008-09 to 2010-11 to develop projects to improve access to childcare for disabled children and young people and to reduce attitudinal barriers. The Disabled Children’s Access to Childcare (DCATCH) programme will, in 2008-09, have a first wave of 10 LAs.
Improving short breaks is a key part of the Government's transformation programme for disabled children's services. Sutton is one of 21 pathfinder areas taking forward best practice in the provision of short breaks. In February 2008 Andrew Adonis, Minister for Schools visited Sutton to listen to the views of disabled young people and their families and hear about work going on in the area.
Publication of a report of a research by Thomas Coram Research Unit into the numbers and types of disabled children and associated services provided by local authorities which showed varying sources of data available to LAs and lack of consistent definition of disability.
Education and Care Services Ministers, Andrew Adonis and Ivan Lewis, have announced the list of 21 local areas gaining pathfinder status in transforming short-break services, as well as local-authority short break funding allocations over the 2008-11 period.