Fighting for disability rights
Neil Puffett
Monday, July 21, 2014
Neil Puffett talks to Amanda Batten, chief executive, Contact-a-Family.
In little more than a month, a raft of ambitious changes will come into effect as part of government attempts to improve outcomes for children with special educational needs (SEN).
Changes to the system from September 1 will mean councils will have to publish a "local offer", listing the support and services parents and children can access under the new system. Meanwhile, new education health and care (EHC) plans will co-ordinate support for all children and young people aged up to 25, replacing SEN statements and placing greater emphasis on personal goals and support children can expect to receive while in education and training.
Amanda Batten, who in May took over as chief executive of Contact-a-Family, a charity that provides information and support to families of disabled children, says action is long overdue. Having worked within the current system for a decade - she spent 10 years with the National Autistic Society - she says many families still face the same issues now as they did when she started.
"We know where the failure points are in services and support," says Batten, who began her career as a parliamentary assistant.
"They have been the same for years - people struggling to access pretty basic information, and services and support that they need.
"I think it should not be beyond our grasp as a society in this day and age for families of disabled children to have good access to basic information and support.
"It is not rocket science."
Batten says there is much room for improvement when it comes to support for disabled children and young people.
"If you look at outcomes for disabled young people in terms of proportions excluded from school, or not in education, employment or training (Neet), on all of those outcome measures, disabled children are overrepresented.
"There is nothing inevitable about that," says Batten, her self-confessed passion for campaigning shining through. "There is a sense of outrage around that that drives me."
However, it will be undoubtedly tough to implement the changes. Children's minister Edward Timpson has previously warned that doing so successfully will be a major challenge for local authorities and will have to be done gradually over the next two years.
Last month, he set aside an extra £76m for the period to help councils adapt to the changes. But despite the extra cash, there are fears that the continuing cutbacks local authorities are making could hamper the changes. Only in May, former interim chief executive at Contact-a-Family, Paul Soames, warned that local authority cuts will undermine the SEN reforms.
"Paul is absolutely right to highlight this," Batten says.
"It's helpful for the Department for Education to be clear that the reforms themselves don't reduce entitlement to support, but I think there's a risk there.
Communication and information
"It goes back to communication and information needing to be really clear - that enables families to challenge and understand the basis on which they are challenging decisions.
"In themselves, the reforms shouldn't necessarily lead to people losing their entitlement. But families will need to unpick decisions, work out what changes are linked to the implementation of the act, and what changes are linked to local policy and funding cuts in order to challenge it.
"At the end of the day, there needs to be money in the system, and there's no getting around that.
"The population of disabled children is increasing. We're very aware of the high level of unmet need."
Batten, says there are a lot of families that are worried about what the Children and Families Act, within which the changes are contained, means for them come 1 September.
"Contact-a-Family has a really important role in making sure there is good information out there so people can understand what it means for them," she says. "But it is not just about 1 September, it is about probably the next two years. At the moment, the calls to our helpline on the SEN reforms are starting to rise.
"Most families really won't even be aware of it yet, so there is a job around implementation and making sure families have good information and know their rights.
"There's a lot of confusion and misinformation out there."
Besides facing the prospect of a new support system, Batten says families of disabled children are also increasingly experiencing financial difficulties.
Research published by the charity last month found that more than two-thirds (72 per cent) of the 2,056 mothers with disabled children questioned had cut back on, or given up work because of childcare problems. And four out of 10 said they did not use childcare because it was too expensive.
"The vast majority of people responding to that element of the research found that they were paying over the odds, some of them paying up to eight times the amount of families of non-disabled children," she says.
"The issue is that the benefit system, particularly working tax credit, does not recognise those additional costs enough.
"That's a common story across the piece.
"The benefit system doesn't adequately address those additional cost barriers families face, and it needs to.
"The thresholds for working tax credit needs to reflect those additional barriers."
The charity is calling for an increase in the upper limit of eligible childcare costs for one disabled child to £300 a week under working tax credit, as well as a national disability childcare fund to develop a skilled workforce and increase the supply of childcare places for disabled children, and those with SEN.
The calls for change were strengthened earlier this month when a cross-party inquiry highlighted "widespread failures" for disabled children across the childcare system. It concluded that "serious faults" at the heart of the childcare system meant thousands of disabled children - from toddlers to teenagers - are missing out on education and employment opportunities.
Lack of funding
Around four out of every 10 families with disabled children aged three and four are unable to access the full 15 hours free entitlement to childcare and early years education due to a "chronic lack of appropriate settings or funding".
Meanwhile, 86 per cent of parents who responded to the inquiry's survey reported paying above average childcare costs; and 72 per cent of families with disabled children have cut back or given up work because of childcare problems.
Moving forward, Batten is keen to finalise a five-year strategy for Contact-a-Family next year. The 30-year-old charity currently focuses on offering direct support to families with disabled children, but also puts families in touch with others for peer support. This will continue to be the main objective, but Batten says she wants to extend the organisation's "reach and impact".
She adds: "We already support a lot of families, but there's an awful lot more to do - at the moment, nothing is off the table.
"We have done some great work in establishing a clear outcomes framework that covers families having more confidence, access to better information, tackling financial disadvantage and raising greater awareness of the issues families face.
"The strategy will look at how we as an organisation can be best set up to achieve those outcomes."
However, she is realistic about what can be achieved.
"Ultimately, as a smallto medium-sized charity, there is a limit to what you can do directly. So that is why I am putting an emphasis on our role in supporting, empowering and enabling families to achieve change at a local level or support others because there's a limit to how much social change you can achieve in a paid workforce based on City Road (in London)," she says.
"The bigger challenge becomes how we can maximise that through working with others."
Amanda Batten CV
- Before taking over at the charity, Batten spent 10 years at the National Autistic Society, first as head of external affairs, and later as director of external affairs
- She joined the National Autistic Society in 2003 and was promoted through a number of roles, joining the senior management group in 2010
- She led a six-year programme improving services for adults with autism and played a role supporting the development of strategies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
- Batten graduated from the University of Birmingham in 2000 with a degree in economics and politics and also has an MSc in voluntary sector management from the Cass Business School