Latest News for Parents & Carers

Women with disabilities are the biggest minority group in the world, but are still shut out of society. In an extract from her new book, the writer Frances Ryan reveals how that is changing – and what more needs to be done.

A number of Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations have told the BBC they are considering stepping back from working with the government over proposed benefit cuts.

A Hampshire charity that employs dozens of disabled people says it’s fighting for survival due to delayed payments from the Government’s Access to Work Plus scheme. Yateley Industries claims it’s around £150,000 out of pocket, which has been owed to them since October last year. The charity was set up in 1937 to give people with disabilities as much independence as possible.

John Harris on how music helped him connect with his autistic son James. When James was a child, he loved playing songs over and over. I Am the Walrus, by the Beatles. Autobahn, by Kraftwerk. “He hears emotion in music. I know that for a fact,” James’s father the Guardian journalist John Harris tells Helen Pidd.

The financial threat hanging over English councils, as a result of the last government’s decision to mask special needs overspending with an accounting ruse, is made plain in a Guardian investigation that used freedom of information requests to dig into their accounts.