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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]
Government commits to making every disabled child matter
Media Release - For immediate release
Monday 21 May 2007
Contact: Pamela Shaw, 020 7843 6318, [email protected]
The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign is celebrating today (Monday 21 May) as the government announces significant new investment to improve services for disabled children and their families. This is the first time that disabled children have been a priority group when the government’s spending plans have been drawn up.
Francine Bates OBE, Chief Executive of Contact a Family and a board member of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign, comments:
‘This new investment will start to transform the lives of families with disabled children all over the country. It shows that when the government says that every child matters, this really does mean every disabled child too. The campaign has lobbied hard to get this money, which is the reward for all the efforts by our coalition of organisations and families to get our issues higher up the agenda’.
The review, Aiming High for Disabled Children: Better Support for Families commits government to a national indicator on disabled children, underpinned by a “core offer” for disabled children and young people and their parents.
Dame Jo Williams DBE, Chief Executive of Mencap and a board member of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign, comments:
‘Currently, only one in 13 families get any form of specialist support in caring for their disabled child. This announcement means that by 2011, many more families will be getting the support they need. This is a huge step forward - but it also needs to be seen as a downpayment on the longer-term change required.’
Regular and reliable short breaks were described as the number one service priority by parents who submitted evidence to the Parliamentary Hearings on Services for Disabled Children, held in 2006 as part of the review. The issue of short breaks was also highlighted by the Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill 2006, a private member’s bill promoted by Every Disabled Child Matters and sponsored by Gary Streeter MP.
The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign was launched in September 2006 at Labour conference by Ed Balls MP. The campaign board and staff team have worked closely with Ministers and officials leading the review and helped ensure that the whole disabled children’s sector were consulted on the proposals.
Every Disabled Child Matters is jointly hosting a conference, Disabled children: A new priority?, in partnership with Capita on 21st May. Government Ministers Ed Balls MP, Lord Adonis and Ivan Lewis MP are all speaking at the conference to announce the outcome of the review.
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For media enquiries, and to arrange case studies and interviews with campaign spokespeople, please contact the EDCM campaign team on 020 7843 6318 or at [email protected]
For out of hours enquiries, please contact Steve Broach, EDCM Campaign Manager, on 07879 638 102
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.
Contact a Family is the leading organisation supporting parents and carers with disabled children in the UK. The Council for Disabled Children is the voice of the disabled children’s sector. It brings together the widest range of individuals and organisations with an interest in disabled children. Mencap is the UK's leading learning disability charity working with people with a learning disability and their families and carers. The Special Education Consortium is a network of the Council for Disabled Children, focussing special educational needs and disability issues in education policy and practice.
The Disabled Children’s Review forms part of the Review of Children and Young People announced in Budget 2006. The funding package being announced today forms part of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) 2007 and will be spent over the lifetime of the CSR (2008-11).
The Parliamentary Hearings on Services for Disabled Children were set up at the invitation of Economic Secretary Ed Balls MP and DfES Minister Lord Adonis. The hearings were an innovative opportunity for parliamentarians and the public to feed into the joint HM Treasury / DfES review of children’s services. Rt Hon Tom Clarke MP chaired the hearings panel, supported by Joan Humble MP as vice-chair. The panel was comprised of 22 MPs from all three main parties, including Jeremy Hunt MP, Conservative disability spokesperson, and Annette Brooke MP, Liberal Democrat children’s spokesperson.
The Disabled Children (Family Support) Bill 2006 covered England and Wales. The Bill sought to create 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. The Bill did not progress past its Second Reading in Parliament in February 2007. It built on a previous 10-minute rule Bill introduced by Ed Balls MP in 2006, when he was a backbench MP.
