Are support services for disabled children in danger?

As a charity warns of “dark times” for disability support in childrens’ services, we asked a panel of experts about what is working and what could be improved

A freedom of information request by the National Deaf Children’s Society revealed in May that nearly one in five councils in England had cut services for deaf children.

Despite a ringfenced education budget, the charity says specialist support staff and equipment budgets have also been cut or scrapped altogether. Chief executive Susan Daniels warned that these were “dark times for children’s services, particularly for support for disabled children”.

A government decision to integrate cash for special schools into the mainstream school funding grant also led to a £1m cut in funding for 20 schools for children with special needs, which education secretary Michael Gove attributed to “an exceptional financial situation”.

Taking deaf children as a cue, we wanted to hear a cross-panel of views from those nearest the policy pulse – in government, charity, health and academia – to find out which areas in support for disabled children could be improved and where things were working well.

Sarah Teather, children’s minister, Department for Education

We can do much better for children with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities. Our green paper, published in March, set out the biggest changes in 30 years to make sure children’s needs are identified earlier and families get the support they need, without feeling they have to battle against the system.

One of the biggest problems that we are trying to address is to get education, health and social services working together better. At the moment it often isn’t clear who is responsible for delivering on the statement of support from the local authority – resulting in some children not getting all the support they need or facing long delays. For example, speech and language therapy might appear in the statement but responsibility for funding and commissioning is down to local health services rather than the local authority.

We propose that children, who would have a statement under the current system, should in the future have an education, health and care plan. This will clearly state who is responsible for providing all the support services the child and their family rely on. The plan will reflect the family’s ambitions for their child from birth to 25 years and will provide the same statutory protection as the statement. We will shortly start to test the best way to achieve this through local pathfinders.

The green paper also includes a number of measures to develop teachers’ skills so they have the specialist knowledge to properly support children with SEN and disabilities.

I am sympathetic to concerns about reductions in local authority services. That’s why I have been very clear that frontline services for vulnerable children should be a priority. We are also listening to views about the best way to fund high-quality specialist support for children with SEN and disabilities in schools, as part of the review of future school funding.

Ann Baxter, chair of the ADCS health, care and additional needs committee

Local authorities are responsible for commissioning and providing services for all children and young people in the area, whatever their needs. In order to establish the best use of increasingly limited resources, local authorities undertake assessments, gathering information on the range and scale of needs.

We know that the number of profoundly deaf children is reducing nationally, though this trend may not apply in all areas. The views of people using the services are vitally important in ensuring that services are delivered flexibly – some families will welcome the introduction of personal budgets as giving them more freedom in what support they receive, others will find such decisions daunting.

Services for deaf children and young people are not solely provided by the local authority. The special educational needs green paper does propose a multi-agency assessment and plan to ensure that children and young people receive suitable support from all agencies to meet their needs in a holistic way. ADCS nationally, and directors of children’s services locally, will be working with the new clinical commissioning consortia, with schools and early years settings to ensure that all partners recognise and contribute to the services required by children with particular disabilities and additional needs.

Professor Adrian Davis, director of the NHS newborn hearing screening programme

Newborn hearing screening has been universally offered in the UK for the last six years thanks to significant investment. It affords the best opportunity for a positive start in life for the development of language and communication, particularly for children born deaf or hearing-impaired.

However, the benefits of newborn screening are only properly realised when early identification is followed by accurate assessment and diagnosis and skilled support from audiological, medical, social care and education professionals working as a team together with parents.

The essential specialist educational provision is normally made by local authority services in the form of qualified teachers of the deaf, who support and guide parents, caregivers and mainstream early educators to develop the child’s language and communication abilities. Without this support, and that of other skilled early years and therapy professionals, the advantages offered by identifying hearing problems early in life will be squandered.

Additionally, for the 50% of deaf children who develop or acquire hearing loss and perhaps are identified by the school entry hearing screen, lack of specialist educational support may mean that their learning needs are neither recognised nor addressed, leading to educational under-achievement and social and emotional difficulties.

Cuts in specialist educational services for deaf children – and all disabled children – may be catastrophic and undermine the undoubted gains made by investment in screening and healthcare in early life. It is vital to safeguard funding for these services to ensure optimum development for children and to reduce later reliance on other social and healthcare services. Parents too must do their part.

Professor Bernie Woll, director of the deafness, cognition and language research centre at UCL

Deaf children aren’t classified as having a learning disability but measures need to be taken because they are at a disadvantage. Changes need to be made to the school and additional support should be put in place.

There are different types of support which should be given for children with different levels of deafness. But for most children, they should be encouraged and helped towards academic achievement. It is also important to make sure the social element of their life is good.

An interesting paper by Margaret Harris looked at how well children learned compared to whether they had a cochlear implant or a hearing aid. People assume that the child with an implant doesn’t need additional attention. In fact it is the other way round. Deaf children can also be overlooked when they’re younger and the problem can accumulate. They can get left behind and develop inabilities.

There are terrific technological advances taking place all the time and they are undoubtedly making some aspects of living easier. However, deaf children are still continuing to under-perform. There have been some interesting studies in the US which show there is an absolutely huge added benefit for deaf children who are given educational support compared to those who aren’t.