A survey conducted by UK charity Contact a Family in 2010, revealed families with disabled children are one of the groups to be hit hardest by the recession as parents balance the demands of  increased living costs, the impact on employment and the responsibilities as a parent and carer. With yet more cuts looming, along with changes to the welfare and benefits system, what can (and needs) to be done to protect the policies that help disabled children and their families?  How will Scottish policy developments, such as the Additional Support for Learning Act 2009 or the implementation of Getting it right for every child be supported and what are the implications of the cuts to public funding?

In 2010, amendments to the Public Services Reform Bill pertaining to the provision of services for disabled children and their families were withdrawn in favour of a focused, comprehensive strategic review around service design and delivery, policy and legislative frameworks and funding. Managed by the Scottish Government, a review report is due pre-election with the intention of providing a “staging post” to highlight key issues around provision of disability support services in Scotland. This event will provide the chance to hear and discuss how to practically implement the short, medium and long term action points for system, culture and practice change with the review lead from the Scottish Government. It will also provide an opportunity to hear from disabled children and young people themselves about their experiences with statutory and non statutory services as well as general quality of life.

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Setting the Scene and the National Review

Some key findings of the wide scale fSDC research project, published in late 2010, included:

• 31,562 children (0-17yrs) in Scotland were in receipt of disability allowance in 2009
• 11% of children who were “looked after” were identified as having a disability. Of these, only 17% found themselves in positive destinations, such as college or in training or employment in 2009
  
• 5% of children on child protection registers in 2009 were reported as having some form of a disability
• In 2009, there were 44,176 pupils who were either based in a special school or had additional support needs in primary or secondary schools in Scotland.  The gross revenue on expenditure on specual education (both special and mainstream schools) was £509m in the academic year 2008/09

Despite the above:

• Very few Single Outcome Agreements contain specific local outcome indicators relation to disabled children
• There are no HEAT (Health Efficiency Access Treatment) targets relating specifically to disabled children

Visit the online resource by following this link: www.fsdc.org.uk/setting-the-scene/intro

To download the ‘Setting the Scene’ summary report click here: www.fsdc.org.uk/assets/files/fSDC_Summary_report_2010.pdf

*NEW* Report of the National Review of Services for Disabled Children. Published Sunday 27 February 2011 and available to download HERE