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Parents to control special education needs budgets

Parents to control special education needs budgets

Reform of SEN gives parents freedom to choose and forces joined-up planning by education, health and social care services Parents in England are to be given control over their children’s special educational needs (SEN) budgets, allowing them to choose expert support rather than local authorities being the sole provider. In what the government described as the biggest reform of SEN for 30 years, the measures will also legally force education, health and social care services to plan services together. Sarah Teather, the minister for children and families, said this would prevent parents being forced to go from “pillar to post” in a battle between different authorities and agencies

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Queen’s speech: families bill promises flexibility and justice for parents

Queen’s speech: families bill promises flexibility and justice for parents

Government proposes more flexible leave and shakeup of justice system to introduce father-friendly access arrangements More flexible leave for parents, father-friendly access arrangements following relationship breakups, faster adoption processes and better help for special needs pupils will be included in a new children and families bill, designed to be a central plank of government policy. Focusing on the shakeup of family justice to deliver a “fairer” system for parents, ministers signalled that the government did not accept last year’s family justice review, which warned against introducing a legal presumption of shared parenting

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Families with disabled children wrongly told they face benefit cut

Families with disabled children wrongly told they face benefit cut

Letters warning of £500-a-week benefit cap are sent to thousands of households that will not be affected Thousands of households, including families with disabled children, have been incorrectly told they are likely to see their welfare payments cut, charities and social security advisers say. From next year, couples or single parents in England who receive more than £500 a week in benefits will have their payments cut

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Laurence Clark: the ‘sit-down’ comic fighting for the right to the good life

Laurence Clark: the ‘sit-down’ comic fighting for the right to the good life

The comedian and his wife Adele both have cerebral palsy, but that doesn’t stop them raising two children while campaigning for disability rights When Laurence Clark tells people he is a comedian, he gets one of two reactions.

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Abortion and disabled children: a tale of two Care Quality Commission reports | Sarah Ditum

Abortion and disabled children: a tale of two Care Quality Commission reports | Sarah Ditum

Serious failings in the support of disabled children are glossed over, while an unpublished report on abortion is leapt on It feels like cheap point-scoring to say that abortion opponents are more concerned with saving foetuses than protecting actual, living children, but the contrasting reactions to two pieces of research by the Care Quality Commission this week suggest exactly that. On Thursday, the CQC (the independent regulator of health and social care services in England) published a report that showed serious failings in the support of disabled children : unacceptably long waits for wheelchairs, a lack of cohesion between different services, and families feeling that they hadn’t been sufficiently consulted about their children’s care. The result: no outrage, no contrite statements from the secretary of state – even though the uncertain effects of the health and social care bill have increased concerns about co-ordination between patient care agencies for children with disabilities

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The ‘Ashley treatment’: Erica’s story

The ‘Ashley treatment’: Erica’s story

The mother of Erica, a severely disabled girl who has undergone a rare treatment to keep her small, speaks to Karen McVeigh • ‘Ashley treatment’ on the rise across Europe and US In the kitchen of her home, Erica’s mother bounces a baby boy – her grandchild – on her knee and smiles as she introduces her daughter, who is just home from school. Dressed in pink jeans, Erica sucks her thumb

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The ‘unnatural’ Ashley treatment can be right for profoundly disabled children | Peter Singer

The ‘unnatural’ Ashley treatment can be right for profoundly disabled children | Peter Singer

Disability activists have concerns about limiting growth, but it is not in the interests of the children to ban the treatment Five years ago, the parents of a profoundly intellectually disabled girl born in 1997, known only as Ashley , told the world about a controversial treatment they were using on their child. It included giving her hormones so that she would remain below normal height and weight, as well as surgery, which included a hysterectomy to remove her uterus and a bilateral breast-bud removal to prevent her breasts from developing.

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The Ashley treatment: ‘Her life is as good as we can possibly make it’

The Ashley treatment: ‘Her life is as good as we can possibly make it’

In an exclusive email exchange, Ashley’s father talks to Ed Pilkington about his daughter’s condition, her growth attenuation treatment – and the criticism his family has faced Towards the end of 2006 an endocrinologist in Seattle called Dr Daniel Gunther published an article in the Archives of Pediatrics in which he described a series of medical interventions he had given to a severely disabled child called Ashley. Together with Ashley’s parents, he devised a course of therapy designed to keep the child permanently small

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