Simplifying Wireless Communications for Individuals with Speech Disabilities - Sprint - (Disabled World News)
Sprint pioneers service simplifying wireless communications for individuals with speech disabilities.
Fri, 25 May 2012 12:51:14 - Local and nationwide news

Engaging the public on how to improve residential care - (Adult services news From Community Care)
Care homes are being asked to invite the public into their premises to discuss what makes residential care and how services can be improved, in a month-long campaign.
Thu, 24 May 2012 12:50:00 - Local and nationwide news

Engaging the public on how to improve residential care - (News - Mental Health)
Care homes are being asked to invite the public into their premises to discuss what makes residential care and how services can be improved, in a month-long campaign.
Thu, 24 May 2012 12:50:00 - Local and nationwide news

Academies' refusal to admit pupils with special needs prompts legal battles - (Society: Disability | guardian.co.uk)

Case of 11-year-old with cerebral palsy and A* maths GCSE fuels wider concerns over education reforms and accountability

Two of the government's flagship academy schools are facing legal challenges over their refusal to admit children with statements of special needs.

One of the cases involves Mossbourne academy in Hackney, east London, which has become one of the most celebrated schools in the country for its academic record.

The school has refused to admit an 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, arguing that it would compromise other children's education and that it already has a higher than average number of pupils with special needs.

The case has highlighted the fact that academies may not have the same legal obligations to children with special needs as maintained schools. While parents of children with special needs have the right to appeal against a decision at any other school, lawyers are concerned that academies can turn them away with no legal right of recourse.

There are up to 30 cases of children with special needs who have been refused a place at an academy, according to Ipsea, the special needs advice service. They include eight against Mossbourne. The London Oratory school, which converted to become an academy under the coalition, is also facing a special needs legal challenge.

The legal cases could have widespread implications as more than half of secondaries in England are now academies.

Mossbourne was one of the first academies and has won praise from both Labour and the Tories for its pupils' achievement. In last year's A-level results, seven pupils from the school won places at Cambridge.

The Learning Trust, which is responsible for education services in Hackney, has refused to name Mossbourne in the boy's statement, the official document setting out a child's needs and the help they should receive, including the name of the school they will attend. Such statements are given to children with the most severe special needs and 2.7% of schoolchildren in England have them.

While he is academically gifted – he has already sat his maths GCSE and got an A* – his condition can make him unsteady on his feet. It also affects his ability at practical tasks such as using a ruler.

The boy's mother, Sarah Creighton, said: "We said, 'In what way can you possibly say [he] is going to interfere with the other children's education?' He's top of the year in all his subjects, he's got GCSE Maths A* already, he's won the pan-Hackney debating challenge two years running, he's a prefect and a reading mentor at his school. Obviously, I'm his mother, and I'm very, very proud of him. But I think I'm justifiably very proud of him."

The Creighton family's lawyers say that Mossbourne has refused to accept that the special educational needs tribunal – a court which hears school place appeals by parents of children with such needs – should hear the case. They say the school claimed it was not governed by the legislation that covers other state schools but only by its own funding agreement with the education secretary.

The Learning Trust applied successfully to have the case struck out but the family has now lodged an appeal with a higher court.

Elaine Maxwell, a partner at Maxwell Gillott solicitors, who is representing the family, said: "The academy may have good grounds for refusing to take a particular child in an individual case, but that should be an argument they make before a tribunal – they shouldn't have it struck out before they get there.

"When you get a school saying it's full, that's not an end to it. The child or his parents should be able to say: does our disadvantage outweigh the disadvantage to other children? There's a balancing act that has to be struck."

She added: "How are academies accountable? This has been inherent in academies from the beginning. If academies aren't bound by SEN provisions and the tribunal system, then the parents of a child with a statement have fewer rights than anyone else."

Mossbourne has told the family that their son's admission "would be incompatible with the efficient education of other pupils at the academy". A local authority can legally decline to name a school in a statement if the child's presence would have a negative impact on the education of existing pupils. This could mean, for example, reducing the level of pastoral care available to other children.

The academy argues that it had nearly 1,600 children applying for 200 places in its September 2012 intake. Of those applicants, 53 have statements. Of the 53, 28 named Mossbourne as their first preference. Nationally, 21% of schoolchildren have some form of special needs but at Mossbourne the proportion in each year is 26%-28%.

The boy's family argue that his statement comes with funds that would help the school to provide for him.

Creighton said: "Part of me feels that this seems so blatantly wrong: that a school can say, 'These regulations set up to protect disabled people don't apply to us, so we don't have to live by them.' That seems so wrong, that anyone would be able to do that."

A spokesman for the Learning Trust said: "As a matter of policy we do not comment on cases of this nature. Depending on the terms of the funding agreement between an academy and the secretary of state, the academy may not have to admit a child even if the school is named in the child's statement."

The case against the London Oratory, a Catholic school in Fulham which became an academy last year, concerns an 11-year-old boy from Croydon. The school has declined to be named in his statement, and again cited the argument that it would compromise the "efficient education of other children".

Chris Barnett, lawyer for the family concerned and head of the education and disability law department at Levenes, said: "If it hadn't been an academy, the authority would have named it [in the statement]. Croydon's position seems to be that it doesn't accept the arguments the school has put forward, but they still won't name it. It seems to me that the LA [local authority] doesn't quite know how to deal with it because it's an academy."

A tribunal hearing in the London Oratory case is due next month.

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A third of parents of disabled children took out loans to buy basics last year - (Society: Disability | guardian.co.uk)

Survey reveals families with disabled children struggling to pay for heating and food, with most saying situation will worsen

Almost a third of families with disabled children have taken out loans in the past year to help them afford basic everyday essentials such as food and heating, research has revealed.

For those families where parents are in work, one in six say they cannot afford to heat their homes. For those families where parents are not working because of their caring responsibilities, almost a third (32%) have difficulty paying heating bills and almost a quarter (24%) told the survey that the extra costs of bringing up a disabled child meant they occasionally went without food.

The survey of 2,300 families conducted by the charity Contact a Family, which supports families with disabled children, also shows that 58% of these families fear their financial situation will worsen over the next year, with 73% of them saying they believe welfare reforms will make them poorer.

The charity's Counting the Costs 2012 report gives a sharp insight into the extra financial pressures faced by families bringing up disabled children, at a time when changes to the welfare system, central and local government cuts and dwindling revenues to charities are making support harder to access.

Around 41% of families have fallen behind with payments for gas and electricity bills, council tax, rent and mortgage, the survey revealed. Some 86% said they had gone without leisure activities and days out because of financial pressures. Of those families who had been forced into debt, 20% had taken out high-interest internet payday loans.

The charity estimates that it costs three times more to raise a disabled child, usually because of the extra cost of transport and specialist clothing, food and equipment.

"In 2012, the need to reduce the budget deficit has created new pressures on vital benefits and services for families with disabled children already experiencing persistent poverty," the report states.

The report details the extra costs of raising disabled children excluding care, citing, among a long list, the cost of a specially adapted bicycle (£800) compared with a regular child bike (£79); the cost of a specialist computer mouse (£200) compared with a regular mouse (£20); and specially measured sandals (£120) compared with a high street pair (£34).

It also notes that parents are complaining of rising popular hostility towards people with disabilities. "I am fed up with people accusing me of making my son's disability up. Some even go as far as to accuse us of having a wheelchair, not because he needs it but so I can scrounge off decent people. The negative comments and hostility have got a thousand times worse in my experience," says one parent quoted in the report.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: "This government is committed to supporting disabled people and continues to spend over £40bn a year on disabled people and their services. However, too many people have been systematically failed by the current benefits system. That is why we are driving forward our welfare reforms to simplify the system and offer more targeted support to improve the life outcomes for disadvantaged children."

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Kidney Stone Prevalence Doubles in Wake of Obesity Epidemic - (Disabled World News)
The number of Americans suffering from kidney stones between 2007 and 2010 nearly doubled since 1994, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and RAND.
Thu, 24 May 2012 01:21:20 - Local and nationwide news

Equal Chance for People with Disabilities to Achieve and Thrive - (Disabled World News)
The job of the President, according to Mr. Obama, is in part to ensure that everyone has an equal chance in America. He is absolutely correct. Each and every single person in this nation deserves the opportunity to achieve their best and thrive.
Thu, 24 May 2012 01:20:16 - Local and nationwide news

GPs call for work capability assessment to be scrapped - (Society: Disability | guardian.co.uk)

Doctors say method of determining who is eligible for sickness benefits should be replaced with more 'rigorous and safe system'

GPs have voted unanimously in favour of scrapping the controversial work capability assessment, the test that determines who is eligible for sickness benefits, to prevent harming "some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society".

At the annual GPs' conference, the doctors backed a motion stating that the computer-based assessments were "inadequate" and "have little regard to the nature or complexity of the needs of long-term sick and disabled persons". They called for the tests to be replaced with a more "rigorous and safe system".

The vote reflects rising concern within the medical profession over the government's use of the work capability assessment (WCA) to reassess the recipients of the outgoing incapacity benefit to determine whether they should receive the replacement benefit, employment and support allowance (ESA).

Since the test was introduced in 2008, hundreds of thousands of people have gone to tribunal to appeal against decisions to refuse them the benefit; around 40% of appeals are successful. Large numbers of patients with terminal and incurable conditions have been found fit for work after undergoing a 30-minute assessment, carried out by a private company, Atos Healthcare.

Andrew Holden, a GP from Petersfield in Hampshire, said the system was not able to distinguish between patients who really needed help and those who did not.

"Since the system was introduced in 2008, people with terminal cancer have been found fit to work, people with mental health problems have complained their condition is not taken seriously and people with complex illnesses say that the tick-box system is not able to cope with the nuances of their problems," he told the conference, proposing the motion.

"The computer-based assessments are carried out by a healthcare professional but one not necessarily trained in the field of the patient's disability, which is particularly important when it comes to mental health issues."

Laurence Buckman, chair of the BMA's GPs' committee, said: "When 40% of appeals against the assessments are successful at tribunal hearings, something is clearly very wrong with the system. Being in work is good for people's overall health and wellbeing, but GPs are seeing too many patients who genuinely need to be on incapacity benefit coming in very concerned and confused by the system.

"The government needs to look again at the whole assessment process and replace it with one that is fit for purpose."

Dean Marshall, chair of the Scottish general practitioners' committee, which has already passed a similar motion, welcomed the vote. "These assessments can have a devastating effect on our patients' mental and physical health. There has been a dramatic increase in the numbers being assessed as fit to work and a massive number of appeals have been made against these decisions. The frequency of successful appeals seems to us to demonstrate the mechanism's shortcomings," he said.

"Our patients are very concerned and confused about these assessments. Many are in fear of how they will cope with the removal of, or cuts to, their benefits. Evidence appears to suggest that people with serious health conditions are sometimes being declared fit for work."

Labour MP Tom Greatrex, who has raised a number of concerns about the WCA, said: "The government should not dismiss the strength of feeling being expressed by the medical profession in this motion – the very people the DWP are reliant on to carry out the assessment.

"As the motion reflects, assessing whether people are able to work is right in principle, but in so many respects the practice has been appalling. Thousands of people have suffered because of the decisions Atos get wrong time and again, costing the public purse millions."

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said improvements were being made to the system. "We're absolutely committed to the reassessment of people on incapacity benefit and helping those who are fit to move back into work. Under the old system too many lives were written off.

"The work capability assessment introduced in 2008 was not fit for purpose, which is why we are implementing all the recommendations made by our independent reviewer to make this a better and fairer process. We want to keep improving the WCA," the department wrote in an emailed statement.

The vote means that calling for the WCA to be scrapped is now the policy of the BMA GPs' committee, which represents 44,000 family doctors across the UK, and the committee will now attempt to make its views clear to the DWP.

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Knowledge gap puts social workers at risk of breaking law - (News - Mental Health)
Children's social workers lack knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, meaning they could be breaching the legislation in child protection cases involving parents with learning disabilities, warn experts.
Wed, 23 May 2012 12:32:00 - Local and nationwide news

Knowledge gap puts social workers at risk of breaking law - (Adult services news From Community Care)
Children's social workers lack knowledge of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, meaning they could be breaching the legislation in child protection cases involving parents with learning disabilities, warn experts.
Wed, 23 May 2012 12:32:00 - Local and nationwide news