Every Disabled Child Matters
Campaign
This campaign is being
spearheaded by four leading organisations working with disabled children and
their families –
Contact a Family,
Council for
Disabled Children,
Mencap
and the
Special Educational Consortium.
We are delighted to announce
that the government has responded to EDCM's calls for a right to short
breaks, by creating a new legal duty on local authorities to provide short
breaks to support families with disabled children.
The duty has been described as
a 'historic moment' in improving services for disabled children and their
families - and we would like to say a huge 'thank you' to all EDCM's
supporters that have backed their calls for a clearer right to short breaks.
Read the news story for
more detail.
While this is a huge step
forward, the new duty is not likely to go as far as creating a new legal
right to short breaks for individual families. EDCM will continue to
campaign - with your support - for further changes to the law.
We would also like to say thank
you to all those that have taken part in EDCM's winter fuel action by
emailing their MP. Although the extension of winter fuel payments to
families with young disabled children was not announced as part of the
budget statement last week, EDCM is meeting with the Director of the
government's Child Poverty Unit this week to take this forward. We will keep
you posted...
You can find out more on the
EDCM website.
The progress on short breaks
shows that your involvement in EDCM campaign actions has a crucial impact on
government policy.
Please visit the
EDCM Website - Get Involved
page to see how else you can help make change happen for disabled
children and their families.
All EDCM supporters are also
encouraged to email your MP through The Children's Society website, asking
them to support calls for disabled children in care to have access to
independent advocacy, to ensure they can get their views across. Please
visit the Children's
Society website.
