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c/o Council for Disabled Children
National Children's Bureau
8 Wakley Street
London EC1V 7QE
tel +44 (0)20 7843 6448
fax +44 (0)20 7843 6313
[email protected]
Campaign announces mass support
Media Release - For immediate release (Friday 26 January)
Contact: Jaine Barry, 020 7696 5603, [email protected]
Disabled children’s campaign announces mass support
Individuals, organisations and MPs back Every Disabled Child Matters and the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill
The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign is today showing the strength of its support by announcing mass backing from individuals, organisations and MPs for the campaign and the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill.
235 MPs now support the campaign - well over a third of the House of Commons. Of those, 175 have signed a parliamentary motion specifically supporting the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill
50 organisations have pledged their support for the Bill, including the Trade Union Congress, the Disability Rights Commission, Carers UK and many of the major children’s and disability charities.
In addition, over 12,500 individuals have signed up as supporters of the campaign through www.edcm.org.uk - taking the campaign more than halfway to its target of 25,000 supporters by the time of the Comprehensive Spending Review in July 2005.
These figures have been announced four weeks before the crucial Second Reading of the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill, scheduled for Friday 23 February 2007. The Bill has been adopted by Gary Streeter MP (Cons, Devon SW) with the support of a cross-party group of backbench MPs, including five Labour MPs. The Bill aims to create a new right to vital short breaks from caring for families with severely disabled children.
Dame Jo Williams, Chief Executive of Mencap, one of the partners in the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign, says:
‘The level of backing for our campaign and the Bill shows that the time has come to give disabled children and their families the priority that they deserve. Evidence from our Breaking Point campaign shows how much more needs to be done to support families with disabled children. We welcome all the support we are getting - and call on every backbench MP to get behind our Bill and make sure it gets safely through its Second Reading.’
-Ends-
For media enquiries and copies of the Bill and accompanying briefing, please contact Jaine Barry in the Mencap Press Office on 020 7696 5603.
Every Disabled Child Matters is a campaign by four organisations working with disabled children and their families: Contact a Family, Council for Disabled Children, Mencap and the Special Educational Consortium. It is a three-year campaign funded by a grant from the True Colours Trust, a Sainsbury’s family trust.
The Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill covers England and Wales. If it became law, it would:
- impose specific duties on local authorities and health agencies to provide short breaks for families who provide a substantial level of care on a regular basis.
- amend the recent Childcare Act to require local authorities to secure a sufficient supply of short breaks in their area.
- require the breaks offered to families to be of positive benefit for the child and their carers, to safeguard against low quality breaks
The need for the Bill was highlighted by a recent Breaking Point survey by Mencap, which found that 8 out of 10 carers of disabled children have felt close to, or reached, breaking point because of a lack of support. The same survey found that a third of families had experienced a reduction in the level of short break care they receive during the past year.
Mencap’s Breaking Point - families still need a break survey was carried out between May and July 2006. 353 families from six areas of England and in Northern Ireland took part. The 2006 survey followed up on themes and issues identified in a 2003 survey. The 2006 survey focused on the impact of lack of services and the quality of short break services. The report is available in its entirety at www.mencap.org.uk/breakingpoint
