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All our Children Belong - a new report |
All our Children Belong
Download this report
(88 pages long)
- pdf format 600 kbALL OUR CHILDREN BELONG:
a startling new report on how institutionalised racism and disabilism is affecting life chances for disabled children
Parents for Inclusion�s report All Our Children Belong describes the uniquely challenging experience faced by Black and minority ethnic families with disabled children in Britain. It contains interviews with both parents and disabled children on how racism and disabilism profoundly affect their lives.
The All Our Children Belong report is the result of a dynamic 3-year pilot project run by Parents for Inclusion, which examined common experiences faced by this group. Most families with disabled children experience injustices, hardships and isolation but for Black and minority ethnic families the experience is made much harder by institutionalised racism and disabilism. Double prejudice is having a devastating effect upon the lives of these children. BME children with disabilities are over-represented in special schools and segregated education. Black boys are 4 times more likely to be excluded from school than any other group. This despite the fact that most impairments are not directly caused by ethnicity or socio-economic status.
The report shows that compared to white disabled children, Black disabled children are more likely to: be excluded from school, be poorer, have less of their social, educational and health needs met, and to face a bleak future segregated from the rest of society with limited independence and employment opportunities.
The report on our 3 year project concludes that the way BME disabled children are treated by the education system is probably result of unintentional racism, with teachers subconsciously influenced by negative stereotypes. Institutional racism therefore acts as a huge barrier to social inclusion for these disabled children.
Many of BME parents are given the impression that special schooling is the only option for their disabled children, when this is simply not the case. Some disabled black children are placed in a mainstream setting without adequate support. Parents then report being placed under intense pressure to remove their children from mainstream schools.
Even when a child has a statement of educational need which spells out exactly what extra support should be provided for them, there may still be great reluctance by the school or the LEA to provide appropriate support and include the child in a mainstream setting. This may manifest itself in considerable delays or education officials� failure to consult with the family.
This may leave the family with no option but to go to an educational tribunal. However because of the emotional or financial costs only a minority of parents ever embark on this course. This means that many children who by law should be in a mainstream school are denied this opportunity and their human rights are compromised. Even fewer BME parents resort to appealing to educational tribunals because they are unaware of their children�s educational rights. If institutionalised racism continues to permeate through the education system this may also have a negative effect on the outcomes of tribunals for BME children.
BME parents report being subjected to discrimination and negative stereotyping themselves when trying to access services, information or support. BME parents often feel social, education and health professionals culturally stereotype them, as �bad parents�, or as �difficult�, �aggressive� or �overly demanding.� It was commonly reported by parents that while many of the professionals they met seemed to have access to lots of information which could help their family, at the same time they but did not seem to want to empower BME parents by sharing this information with them.
All parents of disabled children may have other needs such as: housing, access to services and information, more money, more support with helping their child and planning their child�s future, support during the school holidays, respite, and help with sleep/behaviour problems. But research shows that while both white and BME families have similar needs, BME families have twice as many unmet needs compared to their white counterparts.
Most Disabled children in the UK tend to be among the poorest groups of children. Compared with white families, fewer BME families receive disability benefits. Even those BME families receiving benefits are still less likely than white families to be awarded the higher rates of Disability Living Allowance, despite both groups having severely disabled children.
Parents experience numerous referrals to many departments and agencies, all of which involves many different appointments and the child having to be assessed over and over again. Many agencies fail to work co-operatively with one another and this causes additional distress and disruption for these families. Waiting processes are often very lengthy. Many BME parents report feeling invisible and it being an enormous struggle to make their voices heard within what are often predominately white, middle class organisations. Parents report feeling daunted by a room of (predominately) white middle class professionals in meetings and unconfident about speaking up, or questioning decisions.
Within some BME communities there is great stigma attached to disability but the persistence of this stigmatisation of disabled people can also be attributed to the lack of services and low levels of awareness-raising work in BME communities. For certain sections of the BME community, ideals of self-reliance and the fear of being seen as not coping is very strong and there is a reluctance to seek assistance or support from those outside of our communities. Service providers who fail to be proactive may interpret these messages as a lack of need.
The failure of statutory bodies to appropriately inform, support and educate BME parents of disabled children on the workings of heath, education and social systems has resulted in the lack of parental participation in the decision making processes. This in turn perpetuates the social inequality for black disabled children and is having a devastating effect on their life chances.
Parents for Inclusion thinks it is vital that all service providers realise the destructive impact racism and disabilism has on these children and their future life chances. Social services, education and health professionals need to recognise that their unconscious assumptions and prejudices actually create many of the barriers to these children accessing appropriate information and support.
There is an urgent need to reach out to these families and to find out what Black disabled children and their families actually find important and want provided. Parents become experts on their child. To fully address the needs of all of the disabled young people within their communities, professionals should urgently set in motion active consultation with BME parents and disabled children about their needs.
Schools should be equipped and willing to welcome all children in their community. Local Education Authorities and ordinary schools need to adapt new approaches to teaching support, the curriculum and funding mechanisms. New schools should be built so they are accessible for disabled pupils. School trips and outings made accessible to all pupils.
Parents want to be provided with accessible information about their child�s educational rights, about services available to them and their child�s human rights under the law. There is a need to specifically target information at different BME communities, especially where English is a second language.
More Black professionals should be employed in the social services education and health systems. Mentoring helps to raise children�s self-esteem and confidence. More black male mentors could help children stay in schools.
Parents of disabled children need to be encouraged to cultivate higher expectations for their children. Early inclusion is very important and should start at nursery. Early intervention, inclusive education and appropriate support can often result in confident disabled people leading productive lives and contributing to society.
Contact Details
If you want any more information please contact Kea Horvers, Operations Director at Parents for Inclusion on 020 7735 7809.
Statistics
As estimated 1.2 million pupils have special educational needs (14% of all pupils) of whom 250,000 have statements of special educational need (3% of all pupils). (Source: Department for Education and Skills)There are 8.5 million disabled adults in the UK, which means approximately 14 % of the UK population, are disabled. (Source: Disability Rights Commission.)
Children and young people with learning disabilities have a greater prevalence of mental health problems than non disabled children. (Source: Department for Education and Skills)
Poverty is one of the main causes of social exclusion. Around 55% of families of disabled children live in poverty. The annual costs of bringing up a disabled child are three times greater than those for a non disabled child. (Source: Department for Education and Skills)
Approximately 48% of disabled adults of working age (e.g. 16 - 59 years old for women, 16 - 65 years old for men) are employed, or 3.4 million people. (Source: Social Research Division of the Department of Work and Pensions.)
Black pupils are three times as likely to be excluded from school than any other ethnic group. (Source: Department for Education and Skills.)
There are approximately 320,00 disabled children in England and the majority live at home with their parents. However estimates of the number of disabled children are now at least 15 years out of date. Disability is not recorded and there is no disability registration process unless the person is accessing services and in most cases disabled children will not access services and so will not be recorded as disabled. (Source: Social Research Division of the Department of Work and Pensions.)
There are currently 1,498 special schools for disabled children in the UK. (Education and training statistics for the United Kingdom 2001: Department for Education and Skills.)
There are 29,653 mainstream schools in the UK. (Education and training statistics for the United Kingdom 2001: Department for Education and Skills.)
Parents for Inclusion
Parents for inclusion is a national organisation of parents of disabled young people. Pi runs a telephone helpline and holds workshops for parents and professionals. Working at grassroot level, Pi supports parents in schools through the setting up of inclusion groups.Parents for Inclusion, Unit 2, 70 South Lambeth Road. London SW8 1RL
Tel: 020 7735 7735 Fax 020 7735 3828
Email: [email protected]
Website: www parentsforinclusion.org
