3 minute read
A vital year of campaigning
THE DISABLED CHILDREN’S PARTNERSHIP (DCP) IS A COALITION OF MORE 100 ORGANISATIONS WHO HAVE COME TOGETHER TO CAMPAIGN FOR BETTER HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE SUPPORT FOR DISABLED CHILDREN AND THEIR FAMILIES. DCP CAMPAIGN MANAGER, STEPHEN KINGDOM, REFLECTS ON SOME SUCCESS FOR THE CAMPAIGN AND PRIORITIES FOR 2022.
First, the good news. On 1 February, the government announced a £30 million fund to provide more short breaks for families with disabled children, alongside £18 million to expand the supported internships programme. We have been campaigning for dedicated funding for disabled children’s social care for years, with the support of a wide network of big and small organisations, thousands of parents, young people and allies, parliamentarians, newspapers and more. The additional funding shows that this campaigning has been heard. It is the result of thousands of parents emailing their MPs and signing petitions; brave parents and young people speaking at events; and hundreds of parent carers filling out our surveys. It’s so encouraging to see all this effort bearing fruit – and a massive personal thank you from me to everyone involved.
But, welcome that the announcement is, it cannot possibly solve all the problems that families face. Our research over the past two years have shown the devastating impact of the pandemic on disabled children and their families. And in the autumn, working with Scope, we published an updated analysis of the funding gap for disabled children’s health and social care – which showed that even before the pandemic it had grown to £2.1 billion. In that context, £30 million may look something of a drop in the ocean. However, it is the first new dedicated funding for disabled children’s social care for a decade, and – crucially – if its use is properly evaluated it should help strengthen the case for more money from the Treasury in future spending reviews. Families can’t wait years for more support, though. For that reason, we have turned our attention from central government to local councils, as they are deep in the process of deciding their budgets for 202223. In January, we launched a new campaign – “Count Disabled Children In”. We are asking parent carers, professionals, and allies and wants to stand up to social injustice to take our quick and easy online action to email their local council leader, ahead of when local councils set their budgets in Spring 2022. At the time of writing, already more than 1,000 people have written to their council leaders, and you can easily join them by taking the action at the website here.
Please join us, and call on your local council to #CountDisabledChildrenIn. We’ve also produced a wealth of material to help parents and allies campaign in their local area, including local data on things such as cuts to spending and delays to assessments, which you can find at the website here. Of course, money is only part of the answer. We are all waiting impatiently for the government to tell us how it plans to address the failures in the system with the long awaited conclusion to its SEND review. We now expect the government to publish a Green Paper (a consultation document) on the review in March this year. We will be looking very carefully at what they have to say – and we will be campaigning to make sure government hears what parents think about it. You can follow the Disabled Children’s Partnership on Twitter at @DCPCampaign, or on Instagram and Facebook at @DisabledChildrensPartnership.
