Category Archives: special needs

Kirklees disability care changes that no-one knew about –

axe falls without users and carers being consulted 

  • by Joanne Douglas, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
  • Jun 1 2012

 

A FATHER has questioned Kirklees Council’s silence over a decision to axe funding for Mencap as a day care provider for people with disabilities.

David Mills Daniel says he and wife Jenny were not consulted before Kirklees Council transferred responsibility for the care of his son from Mencap to a new provider.

And he says it will cause unnecessary disruption for those who depend of the service – the people with disabilities themselves and their carers.

His son Edmund, 33, has Down’s Syndrome and severe learning difficulties. He has attended the Waverley Hall centre, Waverley Road, for five years.

Special needs budgets to be controlled by parents

The plans aim to create a more integrated and less bureaucratic system for children with special needs

By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent

Parents are to be given more financial control over support for children with special educational needs, in a major shake-up of the system in England.

The government says it wants to push ahead with proposals announced last year that parents should have a “personal budget” for their children.

The changes could also see fewer children in the special needs category.

Children’s minister Sarah Teather said the current system was “outdated and not fit for purpose”.

The government is setting out its response to last year’s green paper on special educational needs – which warned that too many parents felt frustrated with having to “battle” against the system.