Thursday 3 December 2009

Every Disabled Child Matters








"Disabled Children’s Manifesto for Change

Every Disabled Child Matters Policy Recommendations
Summary
Disabled children and young people have made their priorities for the next election clear
in the Disabled Children’s Manifesto for Change.
The Every Disabled Child Matters campaign has put together this paper to recommend policies that your party might create to address these priorities.
Disabled children have set the following challenge to the next Government:
• Make people understand and respect disabled young people and children.
• Support us to take part in our communities, doing the things that all other children and young people do.
• Make a commitment that you will make sure the services we use can support us to live ordinary lives.
• Help us to get the education, jobs and training we want.

Every Disabled Child Matters priority recommendations Party Election Manifesto Commitment:
Every political party should include a commitment in their party manifesto to ‘ensure that services meet the additional needs of disabled children and their families’.
This should include specific commitments to:

• Sustain investment in improving services that meet the additional needs of disabled
children and their families
• Improve social mobility for disabled children and their families
• Embed the rights of disabled children in policy and legislation
Respect: The next government must ensure that health, education, leisure and social
care professionals receive training on working with disabled children and young people.
We also want the forthcoming Equality Bill to put pressure on public bodies to address
discrimination against disabled children and young people.

Community: The next government has to invest in accessible and inclusive participation structures, so that disabled children and young people can enjoy the same opportunities as their peers. We want forums for disabled children and young people to influence issues around disability.
Education and training: The next government needs to push schools, colleges and apprenticeship schemes to promote opportunities for disabled children and young people.
By doing this the disproportionate number of disabled young people who are NEET will be addressed.
Recommendations in detail
Respect
Attitudes
Disabled children asked you:

• We want the next Government to make sure all disabled people are full members of society and can take part alongside everyone else.
• We want the next Government to ensure services promote equality for disabled children and young people.
• We want policies and laws to include disabled children and young people, so they can do the same things as other people.
Every Disabled Child Matters recommendations
All parties should commit to embedding the rights of disabled children and their families throughout all relevant Government policy and legislation.
The next Government should proactively promote inclusion and equality for disabled
children and young people, with a specific focus on ensuring that mainstream services
meet their needs.
In order to do this, they should commit to ensuring that the forthcoming Public Sector Equality Duty requires public bodies to provide specific information on how they are proactively addressing discrimination against disabled children and young people.
The next government must require sector skills agencies to ensure that early years and
childcare, education, health, welfare and social care professionals receive training, and
are continually assessed, on the way they work with disabled children and young people
and the way they proactively promote an inclusive approach to the services they deliver.
We would welcome commitments to ensure that sector skills agencies develop common
core competency frameworks and that every statutory Children’s Trust Board will be
required to use when creating a joint training strategy..."

References:


http://www.edcm.org.uk/Page.asp?originx_3869pu_6923476562580e68j_20095181136d

Notes: Photo and logo from Google Images and from the Every disabled child matters website.

2 comments:

Rony Schenker, OTR, PhD, Tsad Kadima, Israel said...

It is a pity that such a meaningful manifesto still keeps the not politically correct non person first language: Disabled Children’s Manifesto for Change . I would rather suggest it to be called: children with disabilities Manifesto for change.
I truly believe that changing the language we use is an important step toward change in general.

Judit Szathmáry said...

Dear Rony,

Thank you for your valuable comment.

It seems that those children accepted it as they have so much to deal with that they are probably unaware of the fact that they can ask people to change the language, which is used to title them as well.

I always cringe when people say athetoid children or my stroke clients etc. But these professionals mean well and they are not aware of what they are doing. Slowly we will progress to become a society when we care to respect everyone… as one of the children in the clips said that we are on the same planet and we should accept each other and get to know each other before we make comments about another human being.

Judit