Then there was silence…

The Disabled Children’s Partnership (DCP), a campaigning body that I represent Urban Saints on, recently released the results of the latest in a series of surveys of families in the UK that have children and young people with additional needs.

The results are stark, the impact of the last 18-months of the COVID-19 pandemic has been harrowing, and the ongoing effect of it continues seemingly with little end in sight.

The findings below tell the story…

Families shared awful stories of services reduced or stopped, of them seeming to become invisible to the professionals and services that they had relied on pre-pandemic.

“My child is becoming invisible… There are more times now where we as a family are broken”. “We stopped, and it was like someone pressing ‘delete’ and we’re gone.”

“Complete lack of human contact, when I’m caring for a child with complex needs who is severely life limited, to only have support via phone and Zoom meetings sometimes seemed inhuman.”

The plight of many families with disabled children hasn’t received the media attention that it so deserves and needs if change is to happen, but one newspaper did highlight some of the issues:

It is little wonder then, in the face of these challenges, that families found themselves exhausted and struggling to cope.

So what can be done? What can change this desperate situation and turn it around?

The Disabled Children’s Partnership is campaigning to demand that the Government uses the upcoming Comprehensive Spending Review to invest in the services needed to restore the unmet needs of disabled children and their families.

It must be a priority as the country seeks to find a way forward out of the current crisis to support those most at need.

We must do all we can to lobby those who can bring influence to this campaign, to make a difference for disabled children and young people, and their families.

Let us keep on keeping on until this bleak picture becomes a better one for families across the country.

Mark Arnold, Director of Additional Needs Ministry at Urban Saints. Arnold blogs at The Additional Needs Blogfather. This article was re-published with permission.