Disabled children

Our aim is to ensure that disabled children and their families are enabled to fully participate in society through improved access to information, advocacy and services, and for disabled children to be able to fulfil their potential with safeguards in place to protect them from abuse and neglect.

The disabled children we work with have told us that all they want is to have the same opportunities in life as their peers. In reality they still face many barriers to enjoying the same rights and opportunities. These barriers are created by: a lack of understanding of disability issues in society in general and among service providers in particular; service structures that are not designed around the needs of the child; and a lack of opportunity for disabled children to have a say about the things that matter to them.

We want to see:

• disabled children and young people supported in having their views, wishes and feelings heard - in decisions about their own lives including the services that they receive.

Just like all children, disabled children have the right to have their views, wishes and feelings taken into account when decisions are made about their lives. This right is set out in Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and in a raft of other legislation, regulation and guidance. However, in practice it remains common for disabled children and young people to be denied the opportunity to communicate their views, wishes and feelings. They often feel powerless, isolated and ignored, and unable to live their lives as they would like to.

The Children's Society is particularly concerned that disabled children who do not live with their families and may be placed away from their home local authority often cannot speak out about their problems or take part in decisions that affect their lives. We lobby for disabled children to have access to advocacy when they need support to express their wishes and feelings. Advocacy services are too often inaccessible to the very children and young people who need them most. Research by The Children's Society found that a quarter of children's advocacy services had not been able to respond to referrals from disabled children and just under half could not provide advocacy for children and young people who do not communicate verbally. 

• that disabled children and young people have access to fully inclusive schools, play and leisure facilities in their local community. We want to see that they are supported to develop friendships, enjoy positive experiences and reach their full potential. 

Young disabled people regularly experience discrimination and exclusion from school and ordinary everyday activities that most children take for granted. Children with special educational needs are at higher risk of being bullied or teased. We want: disabled children to have the support they need to participate fully in their local community; disability awareness to be part of the national curriculum; anti-bullying strategies to include a focus on disabled children; and the promotion of positive attitudes towards disabled children and young people within the community.

We continue to raise our concerns with the Government on how the proposed reforms to the legal aid, education, health care and welfare systems may impact on disabled children and children with special educational needs. For example, we are lobbying against the removal of legal aid for all educational cases which in our opinion will have detrimental impact on the ability of disabled children to access education that would help them develop to the best of their potential. See our response to the consultation on proposals for the reform of legal aid.

Together with the Special Educational Consortium we are currently lobbying on the Education bill around the issues of exclusions and admissions, local accountability and co-ordination of services to ensure that disabled children and children with special education needs are not affected in a negative way. 

We have also been speaking against the removal of the mobility component of the Disability Leaving Allowance for children and young people in residential care. 

• that disabled children and young people who wish to use direct payments or individual budgets to manage and purchase their own services are supported to do so.

Disabled children regularly tell us they want to have more control over their lives – to be able to choose what to do, how to do it and who could help. Young people have told us that direct payments create more flexibility and choice and allow people to make decisions about how their care is delivered. We want to see all disabled young people involved in planning for their futures and given the opportunity to make an informed choice about how the services they require are provided and paid for.

We will be sharing learning from our direct work with children and young people in relation to direct payments and personalised care in our response to the Government’s green paper on special educational needs and disability.

• that disabled children and young people with communication impairments are understood as a result of those working with them having time, skills and knowledge of different means of communication.

All children can communicate. Some do not use speech but can express their wishes, hopes and feelings through other means. However, young people are too often denied this basic human right because those working with them do not have the time or skills to understand how they communicate. Working in partnership with the Communication Trust and supporting the 'Hello' campaign for the National Year of Communication we are endeavouring to ensure that every child has the opportunity to understand and be understood.

• that disabled children and young people and their families are offered positive short break opportunities.

We welcomed the development of short break services for families with disabled children through the Aiming High for Disabled Children programme and more recent announcements by the current Government about their support for short break services.

We believe that families with disabled children should be able to access a range of specialist and universal services when they need them and that they should be empowered to have a stronger voice about how these services are provided. Our concern is that with the proposed cuts to the local authority budgets, the access to these so much needed services, universal as well as specialist, may decrease.

We will keep lobbying on behalf of the children and young people we work with to ensure that short break services are not denied to those who need them.

• that there is support for disabled children and young people to access employment and education opportunities as they transit to adulthood.

The recent Ofsted report noted that past the age of 16, young people with learning difficulties or disabilities comprise one of the groups most likely not to be in education, employment or training.

We would like to see disabled young people better supported in their earlier school carers and when they turn 16. This can be achieved through disability awareness training for education providers, better choice and accessibility of post 16 education, improved transition planning and joint working between different services, and also support with finding employment for young people at 18.

We have raised these issues recently in our submission to the Education Select Committee and will focus on them in our response to the SEN and disability green paper.