Good news for a change (at least to begin with...)
There has been some lovely visible success for Disabled people in TV and film recently, as Sophie Morgan was named as a contestant for this autumn’s season of Strictly Come Dancing. That’s Sophie Morgan who uses a wheelchair, rather than Sophie Morgan who is a wheelchair – as the Sun’s front page would have had it, announcing ‘first wheelchair contestant’ rather than first wheelchair-using contestant. We are wheelchair ‘bound’, or ‘in’ a wheelchair if you believe society at large. Whereas if you talk to us, actual Disabled people, you’ll find out that we use mobility aids. We are wheelchair users , crutch users , scooter users . It’s a simple, but important shift of language, which takes us away from being seen and conversed about as objects, into being fully formed and functional humans, which of course we are.
Also not a wheelchair is Paralympian Abby Cook, who joins long-running CBBC show Blue Peter as its first wheelchair-using presenter, hired not for her chair, but for her ‘unstoppable can do’ according to Blue Peter Editor Ellen Evans, which is exactly as it should be.
And then to the Oscars, where James Martin was presented the award for An Irish Goodbye, which won best live action short ( I’m ignoring The Whale). The film, which can be watched on the BBC iPlayer, tells the story of a man (played by James) with Down’s Syndrome fighting for his independence.
I’m shocked. Good news from the land of Disabled people. And three times over in one week!
Elsewhere, everything else is, as ever, still an unholy mess.
In schools, a new report from the Disabled Children’s Partnership reveals that seven out of ten parents said their Disabled children’s health had deteriorated because of a lack of support, and only one in three Disabled children has the correct level of support from their education setting. SEND education is an unput-out-able bin fire for families juggling work, the cost of living crisis, managing disability within the family, jumping through medical hoops, benefit hoops, and fighting an education system and a care system which are often diametrically opposed (either because of ignorance, a lack of funds, or systemic design) to providing what parents know as the experts in their children and their conditions, what their children truly need to thrive.
The Government recently released its Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) Improvement Plan. It’s not remotely enough.
One of the Plan's key outcomes is to reduce the need for and number of EHCPs. The only way that EHCPs should be brought down is through the provision of a well-oiled system that puts the needs of Disabled kids at its heart. And that simply isn’t going to happen.
Is the Government going to rebuild every school which currently has three storey staircases instead of lifts? Hearing loops? Wheelchair access in ordinary classrooms? Not to mention re-engineer the entire secondary system, which lumps around a dozen small primaries into one mega-school of a thousand or so kids, most of whom are overwhelmed at the change in size of facility, number of hormonal pubescent peers, pace of learning, and amount of soul-destroying, decompression time-eating homework that needs doing in what used to be known as free or family time. And those are the ones without severe mental health distress (around 50% of all school kids) and neurodiversity (diagnosed kids are in single figure percentages, but some studies put the figure at around 15-20% of people). Schools don’t have inclusive cultures or environments. EHCPs are the only way of making education, health and care services accountable. We need more EHCPs, not less.
The willing is there from Government. Sort of. But the Plan is half baked, and the oven is on such a low setting, it’s unlikely to rise with anywhere near the haste needed to help the current generation of kids suffering in schools. Half of the 1.6 million children persistently absent are not logged as having illness. Many are having Fridays off. Is that bunking off? Or is it a huge red flag about the mental health of kids who are in a state of burnout and poor mental health (AKA disability) and need that day to recover from the huge amount of pressures the current school system puts upon them? Children’s Commissioner Rachel De Souza and disability organisations such as DR UK have vastly different views on this. Us? We’re listening deeply to the kids and their parents before opening our mouths.
Jeremy Hunt has said that he will reduce costs for people on pre-payment meters, which should save them £45 a year (an unfair premium added on to costs to cover meter management). Pre-payment costs should now match direct debit costs. And it is (for now) keeping the ban in place on the aggressive installation of these pending production of an industry wide Code of Practice. Many Disabled people are on these meters – Disabled people who should never have had them installed in the first place as they should be in the exemption groups.
But none of this addresses the fact that topping up a meter is often paying off arrears rather than buying fuel to use now. Every person I know on these meters is putting in far more money than people on direct debits.
These meters are inhumane. In effect, they penalise the poorest people by switching off their energy supply when they can’t pay, unlike the rest of the population who are given time to pay. I don’t believe that the Government’s vow to bring parity to bills is going to work. Because it’s not putting people’s need for energy use above people’s obligation to pay bills way beyond their means. When people can’t keep warm, Government has a moral obligation to ensure they can.
These measures are thin – like spitting into a hot water bottle instead of boiling and pouring a kettle. We need a pledge to remove these meters from those already stuck with them. They are the heating equivalent of the poor house – marking out ‘us’ from ‘them’. And there needs to be greater help with the cost of fuel for the poorest people. I don’t know anyone on a meter who doesn’t feel a sense of shame and stress from having had one enforced upon them. They are cruel, punitive, and should be ripped out, en masse, and consigned to the recycling heap.
