In a report published today, Tuesday 16 June 2020, the Disabled Children’s Partnership – of which CDC is a member, says that 76% of parents who had previously received support for their disabled children had stopped altogether, leaving parent carers and siblings to take on full-time caring responsibilities. The ‘Left In Lockdown’ survey received over 4000 responses from parents of disabled children and young people. The top 3 concerns expressed are: the impact on children’s behaviour and mental health; impact of children’s friendships and managing home schooling; and what will happen if parents contract Covid-19.
Key headlines include:
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70-80% of parents reported a decline in mental health for their children
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64% say the lockdown is having a negative impact on their child’s disability or condition
- 51% of those that were receiving therapies or other extra support say this has now stopped
- Two thirds (64%) of parent carers are worried about how much home schooling they are doing with their disabled children
- Nearly a third (32%) say no specific support in relation to their child’s additional learning needs, disability or special educational needs has been offered by the school to help with home learning.
Recommendations of the report include: the need of a plan for re-establishing and expanding care support such as short breaks; and for the Care review to include a focus on social care support for disabled children - to support the SEND Review and to address the wider changes needed.
Dame Christine Lenehan, Director of the Council for Disabled Children, said:
“Left In Lockdown lays bare the challenges for families of disabled children during the pandemic, there are some good initiatives but these get lost in the avalanche of unconnected responses to the complexity of families lives. We need to take this learning into the future, to get families lives on an even keel as soon as possible but also to use the SEND review to fundamentally improve support”.
You can read the full report here: https://disabledchildrenspartnership.org.uk/left-in-lockdown/