Latest News for Parents & Carers

Deaf representation on TV is continuing to grow with a deaf contestant on Channel 4’s Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker and comedian John Bishop’s new documentary and comedy show – John & Joe Bishop: Life After Deaf – in which he learns about British Sign Language (BSL) and deaf awareness with his son, Joe, who lives with hearing loss, and presents a fully-signed comedy show.

A new wildlife hub for children with disabilities has opened, built from funds a woman left in her will. Olwen McPherson gave £30,000 to the Dorothy Clive Garden in Market Drayton, Shropshire, to build the hub for children to connect with wildlife. Ms McPherson was the founder of The AbleChild Trust, a charity that helps children with disabilities.

A woman has credited her mother with keeping her alive, after she quit her job to care for her and her brother. Avneet, 21, and her brother Eeshar, 25, from Derby, have cystinosis, a rare, genetic disease that damages their kidneys and, for which there is no cure.

Disabled people who struggled for hours to queue to pay their respects to the Queen at the lying-in-state in Westminster Hall say the government treated them as an “afterthought” and that its “discriminatory” arrangements were “a shambles”. Many disabled people travelled from across the country to reach the Tate Britain art gallery in central London, where they queued for hours for a wristband that only allowed them to join the “accessible queue” to view the Queen’s coffin hours later, and sometimes not until the following day. By the weekend, disabled people were reporting having to queue for up to eight hours (pictured) just to obtain a wristband.

Earlier this year the Department for Education announced £12 million of funding to directly support schools and colleges to work with pupils with SEND, through the new Universal Services contract. Another aspect of this work involves a three-year, £4.8m improvement to SEND improvement in local areas from a new consortium under the title “The RISE Partnership”.