On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me : Twelve Forsaken Futures...

Every Child is Supposed to Matter. Right?

During our earliest years a large part of the pattern for our future life is set. Investment in a child pays dividends in terms of health and educational outcomes and future life prospects. Investment in early support for families pays later dividends for society as a whole.This was exactly where Sure Start stepped in, aiming to ensure every child had the best start in life, initially by targeting those children and families most in need, in the most vulnerable communities and breaking the cycle of disadvantage of the poorest families. But Labour saw Sure Start as a universal service for all families with children under five and ensured it spread attracting families from all backgrounds, breaking down barriers of isolation and opportunity. Three million children attended Sure Start centres, groups and play sessions last year. Sure Start centres offered family health services, breastfeeding support, emotional support, childcare and early learning, advice on parenting and support for looking for work or training opportunities. Add in the opportunities for parents to be able to socialise, and it is clear to see they are a gem. For many it is more than that, for many Sure Start is an absolute life line.

Although a Labour initiative, Sure Start appeared to have cross party support, Coalition Children's Minister Tim Loughton said the government was "100% committed" to Sure Start.

David Cameron speaking before the election to the NCT said.. "We are strongly committed to Sure Start Children’s Centres.”

Fantastic! The future is looking good then?

Not at all...

Funding of Sure Start through the Early Intervention Grant was cut by 11% in last year’s emergency budget, and again in the comprehensive spending review. Now the security of a ring fenced budget has been removed by the Coalition. The Department for Education says of the Early Intervention Grant “local authorities are free to decide their priorities for its use.”

The tragedy and reality is Sure Start is being decimated by cuts as councils face tough decisions. Hammersmith and Fulham Council as an example are cutting the Borough’s Sure Start budget by 45%. As a consequence Centres are being starved of funds, services are cut, relocating, merging and closing. Coalition policy is turning a much loved universal service into a shell. The cuts will affect everyone. This from a mum in west London:

“There are plans to move child health, antenatal and postnatal services including breastfeeding support to another Sure Start, so having to take a train/bus and another bus plus walk a long distance, potentially with birth injuries and older children. The reasoning? The only Sure Start centre now is in an area of deprivation so gets the funding. The original area is not although there is still clinical need and considerable evidence that early intervention in child and maternal health leads to reduced NHS costs later. This area has a higher maternal age than most and consequently an increased risk of postnatal depression, c-section rates and other factors associated with older mothers.”

Families may well become isolated and will certainly lose the direct access to specialist health, education and safeguarding services and opportunities for early intervention and support are lost. This country will pay the price. Providing families with the support they need when they most need it, rather than picking up the pieces will cost far less in the long run.

And it’s not just Sure Start....

So, as they claim, will the Government’s plans still deliver the best start in life for every child, regardless of background? I fail to see how. Many other early intervention and support services are under threat too. Here are five, maybe lesser known programmes under threat due to ill advised funding cuts.

Funding cuts to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) mean that in many areas primary aged children and pre schoolers with mental health problems will go without referrals, assessment, diagnosis and support as limited money available is directed towards teenagers in greatest need. Take away the early intervention here and there will be a dramatic increase in the numbers of teenagers with severe mental health problems within the next ten years. What a tragic consequence of a short sighted funding cut. My friend's daughter's anorexia started early in Year 5, I have seen first hand how early intervention is so vital, having to wait for help doesn't bear thinking about.

“Draining money from early intervention services is short-sighted, and just stores up problems for the future as young people are left without access to early help, meaning mental health problems become more serious and entrenched.”

Sarah Brennan, Chief Executive, YoungMinds

Funding Cuts to Portage So much for David Cameron having an empathy with parents of disabled children. He obviously has a very short memory. Portage workers provide a service for children from birth or diagnosis until statutory school age who have developmental or learning difficulties, physical disabilities or other complex needs, and they are committed to securing inclusion. Families are supported at home, and children can be supported one to one in nursery classes. Government funding for Portage ceased in entirety at the end of 2011 at which point they became totally reliant on charity and fundraising such as Just Giving. Already the service is shrinking, experienced Portage workers are losing their jobs and far fewer families benefitting.

Just before Christmas I was invited to a Coffee Morning and Cake sale to raise funds for our local Portage. Cake sales? It has come to that, a service as important as Portage reduced to scratching around for funds. This is not sustainable and I fear the service lives on borrowed time. More children and families will become isolated at a time when they are feeling most bewildered, vulnerable and isolated. Portage cuts will add extra pressure on the limited pot of SEN funding, so fewer children will benefit from extra support. It is not right. Children with additional needs should get the help they require.

Funding cuts to Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) At least 30% in some areas which means that waiting lists grow ever longer, affecting a child’s education and socialisation. This example comes from a neighbour of mine - their concerns were raised when their son's speech development stagnated at about the age of 19 months. The obvious port of call would have been their Health Visitor, but the Health visiting team has been reduced down to such an extent that this service in almost non existent in our Borough.

Initially the family visited their GP who suspected glue ear and referred them to the ENT specialist to discuss having grommets. There followed a very frustrating and lengthy period of successive appointments when the family felt they weren't getting anywhere. The first time speech and language therapy was mentioned was by the audiologist who seemed surprised they hadn't already been referred. Because of funding cuts, in our part of London the waiting list for SLT is incredibly long, it was easily going to be six, if not closer to twelve months. The parents were getting increasingly worried that speech delay was affecting his behaviour and social development, recognising the greater delay the greater the problem. They took the very difficult decision to pay for private SLT treatment.

"What I'm angry about is that if he was waiting for NHS treatment, he'd still be waiting. If we were relying on Health Visitors to spot developmental delay we would have still been waiting. We are not proud that we went private. If he had been treated promptly with grommets or speech therapy less intervention would have been needed. It goes against all my principles to go private when we have great NHS practitioners, but I felt we had no choice here. We were lucky we had savings, I say we, I mean our son. The small amount I had put by in a savings account for him has been spent on SLT.

If he had not had the treatment he would still be struggling and his behaviour would have deteriorated further - he would have had far worse attention problems. This would have had a knock on effect at nursery and school. He would require greater assistance to communicate and would be further behind. This cannot be a good way to manage costs - spend more later by delaying intervention?"

The earlier a hearing problem is identified and intervention begun the less serious its impact will be on the development of receptive and expressive communicate skills. The gap in academic achievement between children with normal hearing and those with hearing loss usually widens as they progress through school. Children who suffer hearing loss can easily suffer from social isolation, negative psychological effects, poor concentration, worry, frustation and anxiety. Cutting back the opportunities for early intervention here just stores problems for the long term and will cost far more to address.

Funding Cuts to 'Every Child A Reader' The despondency of a child struggling to learn to read is palpable. Their confidence, self esteem and motivation plummets, they feel anxious and miserable and will be acutely aware of their peers' progress. For them the whole school environment will be intimidating as will learning itself. The consequences of a child struggling with reading accumulate over time and can become monumental in terms of educational development and future life opportunities.

So there was a certain irony and sadness in Stephen Twigg celebrating the CBE of Jean Gross in the New Year's Honours. Her highly effective Every Child a Reader scheme is currently desperately struggling for funds. Removal of ring fencing for educational initiatives has left this early intervention scheme amongst others very vulnerable indeed.

Every Child a Reader supported the development of literacy skills in the youngest primary aged children, with daily, intensive, specialised and personalised teaching to help those struggling. Investment at this point reaps dividends and can genuinely be life changing. Researchers at London's Institute of Education found children caught up with their peers in as little as twelve weeks, whilst those not in the scheme fell progressively further behind. And the progress is lasting. The costs may be high but surely the costs of not doing this are even higher? A child struggling to read aged six is likely to still be struggling at the end of Primary, putting a huge additional financial strain on the secondary sector with increased need for SEN support, compounded with higher levels of truancy and exclusion.

"Ultimately, if you do not get a child reading by the time they leave primary school, by the time they arrive at secondary, the curriculum is just a closed book to them, literally."

Michael Gove.

Well quite. So why is it then Michael Gove, you saw fit to remove the ring fencing and put schemes like this at risk? It is lunacy. These children are vulnerable, and surely we need to catch them before they fall?

Funding cuts to Home Start Home Start provides regular, informal and practical support to families under severe stress in their own homes. 35,000 families contacted Home Start last year seeking help. The demand is so high that the service is already over stretched. And yet, 40 Home Start groups face closure in the next 6 months, due to severe funding cuts. Struggling families and vulnerable children are being left without much needed support. The implications are bleak. My friend had tremendous support from her local Home Start worker as she came to terms with terminal cancer whilst trying to cope with four very young children including twin babies. They were a family in crisis and at complete breaking point. And guess what? Her Home Start group is one that is facing the axe.

There's a pattern emerging...

All these cuts to early intervention and support programmes are a false economy. Money invested here will SAVE in the long term:

• By helping ALL children grow up to be productive and independent.
• By improving developmental, social and educational gains for ALL children.
• By reducing the future costs of Special Educational Needs.
• By reducing costs of future health care needs.
• By reducing the stress, frustration and feelings of isolation for children and their families.

Funding cuts to services for younger children run in direct opposition to the government "rhetoric" in support of early intervention. Society will be the biggest loser. The benefits of early intervention and support can only be realised by prioritising resources across local government, the NHS and entire public sector, not cutting them. The Coalition Government are blatantly going for the quick fix whilst ignoring the long term picture. They are burying their heads in the sand. What a bleak future. I think we face a financial time bomb by failing to invest in children's support services and early intervention measures. This will come back to haunt us.

On The Tenth Day of Xmas, My True Love Gave To Me... Ten Layabouts a-Leaping

"There are thousands of people who have a mobility car and are perfectly well. I know lots of people who are off sick on disability and manage to dance at parties and do the gardening".

How often have you heard that? Is it really that easy to get Incapacity Benefit or its replacement Employment Support Allowance (ESA) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA)? Alicia Duffy has a different experience.

I was recently required to attend a work capability assessment (WCA), administered by the controversial ATOS healthcare. The assessment is meant to decide if somebody is eligible for employment and support allowance - the main benefit for people unable to work due to illness or disability - and, if so, whether they should have to undertake “work related activity” such as training and careers advice.


WCAs have been causing worry to many people, especially as stories spread of unfair decisions, inexpert assessments and simple bad treatment from ATOS employees. Disability message boards and support groups are full of people terrified of losing their benefits due to what is literally a box-ticking exercise - the medical professional simply selects the option on a computer screen that best meets the answer given, with no room for flexibility. Some of the most worried are people with severe mental illness.


Mental illness is hard to see, and especially hard to judge in a meeting of less than an hour. Most sufferers from severe illness - usually defined as including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other conditions where psychosis can be present - have spent years in the system, taking strong medication, being treated by specialist teams and often with periods of inpatient care. Despite this, they are still being called in for the WCA, often itself leading to deterioration in their conditions. When I had my assessment, I was only a few weeks out of hospital after a relapse.


My case highlights many of the contradictions in the WCA system. My husband works, so our income is too high for me to receive ESA payments; the only benefit I get from claiming is that basic national insurance contributions are made on my behalf. The total value of these contributions are around £13 a year. Even if I had managed to fool all the doctors, nurses and other professionals all these years, and the WCA exposed me as that modern folk-devil, the benefit fraudster, it would save the taxpayer very little. ATOS and the DWP have repeatedly refused to reveal how much each assessment costs, but it seems unlikely that it is less than £13.


The nurse who performed my assessment was not trained in mental health - ATOS does not employ any mental health nurses, despite “mental and behavioral disorders” being far and away the most claimed for group of illnesses, at around 35% of all claims. This has implications both for the amount of people wrongly deemed able to work, and the amount of people able to fool an untrained assessor into declaring them incapable.


As I also claim other benefits, I have faced many long and often irrelevant questions about my condition, repeatedly provided the same evidence and contact details for my specialist team who confirm details of my illness, and spent many hours researching the correct forms, claims and procedures. Not only is this upsetting and bad for my mental state, I am also constantly worried that I have made a mistake and that my income will be taken away or reclaimed, or that I could face criminal proceedings through an administrative mistake. I am lucky enough to be relatively educated, and to have a variable condition, meaning some days I am able to coherently put my case across. Many sufferers of severe mental illness are not so lucky.


Benefit claimants are routinely portrayed as “scroungers” and those of us reliant on the state for much of our income find ourselves stigmatised and afraid. Often these are some of the most vulnerable in society, and unable to stand up for themselves when faced with discrimination. Sufferers of severe mental illness often have to deal with the double jeopardy of being told on one side that they are malingering and should snap out of it and get back to work, and on the other that they are dangerous and need locking up. If they try to object to negative treatment, they can find their opinions and testimony discounted on the grounds of their mental illness, especially if they suffer from psychosis or other such severe symptoms.


Sufferers of severe mental illness are much more likely to be vulnerable and need extra support, and although there are many excellent services and charities working with and for them, the benefits system is not currently set up for their needs. It sometimes feels as if the government are working towards the ultimate Catch-22; if you can qualify for benefits by handling the hundreds of pages of form-filling, negotiating the maze of departments, offices and units, and convincing the GPs, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, civil servants and ATOS box-tickers, you’re not just fit for work. You’re good enough to be Minister for Social Security.

On The Fourth Day of Xmas, My True Love Gave to Me... Four Grades of Unemployment

The unemployment statistics show a rise of 128,000, in the three months to October, meaning a total of 2.51 million people are officially unemployed in this country. 


That is 8.3%, with dramatically bigger rises in London and the North East.  But do people know what the statistics actually mean?  




Employment and Support Allowance is the controversial replacement for Incapacity benefit, brought in by the Labour government in 2008 for new claimants, and gradually extended to all Incapacity Benefit claimants.  



After the first 13 weeks of the claim, the claimant is reassessed,  then put in one of three categories - fit for work (at which point they must find a job or migrate to jobseekers allowance), Work Related Activity group (or WRA) and support group.  Only 7% of claims are awarded support group status - ie judged completely incapable of work (although, as we have seen on Frothers, many of these decisions are reversed on appeal).


 17% of ESA claimants are placed in the WRA group.  This amounts to over 400,000 people who are judged to be fit for work if appropriate adjustments are made, or in the near future.  These people are required to attend work focused interviews where they will discuss how they will get back into work, and can have their benefits docked if they fail to attend. 


These are the people who were described as “work-shy scroungers” in certain papers when the latest set of ESA claimant data was released.  Yet they are not included in the latest unemployment statistics.

“Unemployed” people are jobless, have been actively seeking work in the past four weeks and are available to start work in the next two weeks; or they are out of work, have found a job, and are waiting to start it in the next two weeks. 

As ESA claimants in the work related activity group are not required to actively seek work, only prepare to seek work, they are not counted.  Yet they are legally required to prepare for work.  So, which are they?  


Are they incapable of work, and so not included in unemployment statistics, just the“economically inactive” group (more on which later), or are they able to prepare for work, as they are legally required to do?  This may sound like a dry statistical question, but those 400,000 people in the WRA group are facing uncertainty about their lives - the status is causing confusion and anger amongst some of the most vulnerable sectors of society.



The Economically Inactive group is, by the most up to date statistics, 23% of the population.  These are people who are without paid work, but are not classed as unemployed.  They may be sick or disabled, carers or not seeking work for some other reason.  This does not mean that they don’t wish to work, only that they are not counted as seeking work.  They may in fact be looking for a job, but unable to start in the next two weeks due to other responsibilities.  They may wish to work, but are prevented by disability or high costs of childcare.  Or they may be stay at home parents or carers.  Of course, some will be rich kids living off trust finds, but somehow I doubt that counts for 23% of the population.



Another group to consider is those who are in part time work, but are looking for full time work.  This figure increased by 70,000 in three months to reach 1.28 million, the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992.  Here are more people who are looking for work, but unable to find it, and are not included on the unemployment statistics.  Workers on low wages are still entitled to many income related benefits, and can even sometimes receive more in welfare benefits than someone out of work.  Many part time jobs are unreliable and low paid, yet the workers are not counted in the unemployment statistics. 


In many ways, these can be the most exposed to the twists and turns of the economy, as they face placing new or changed claims if they lose the jobs they do have, but are without the small security that having an established claim can provide.  They find themselves without enough work, but not “unemployed enough” to become a target for the limited amount of work finding schemes that are available.



The unemployment statistics may be awful, but they hide an even more shocking truth.  There are simply not enough jobs in this country, and the statistics show more than we are being led to believe.


We have four groups not included in unemployment statistics:

- the unemployed (about 2.64 million)
- those in Work Related Activity schemes (400,000 people)
- economically inactive (9.33 million)
- part-time workers, looking for full-time work (1.28 million) 

Of those four groups, only the first - the 8.3% of the population (or 2.64 million) are reflected in government unemployment figures. And that figure is estimated to rise in the next year, peaking at an estimated 2.85 million in 2013.

120,000 jobs lost in the public sector, and too few jobs in the private sector. Yet the government still insists that their plan is working, that the employment market is stabilising.

More annoying than that is the comment by Shadow Work and Pensions Minister, Ian Austin who stated that it was, "crystal clear that this government is failing to get people off benefits and into work".

That was a cheap shot, Mr Austin. Try bashing the ConDem government for their policies, instead of the benefit claimants, many of whom would dearly love to have a job.

In some sectors there are over 40 applicants for every job. The politicians on both sides of the spectrum need to accept that most people want to work, there are simply not enough jobs out there.



By Alicia Duffy and MmeLindor

Behind the media images: real people, real lives, real ambitions.

Hello

There are some great posts on here and I don't think I can better them- well I am well known for being able to spout ATOS stats until I am blue in the face but I am of the mindset that people have switched off and are trying to protect themselves So, this is why I 'froth'. Not in it's entirety- I have frothed longer than I have known what frothing is- but I hope you will understand better when you have read this.

My name is Diddy, for this at least. I am a wife, mother of four marvellous children, a graduate and almost hold an MA (hope to manage to complete the research portion soon, it's been done by years of part time 3am slog).

My family- well my eldest has Asperger's and because he suddenly becomes aggressive, steals food, and hurts me and the siblings regularly he needs to never be out of earshot and under 24/7 supervision despite being a comp level student with an ambition to become a jewellery designer. The next one has no diagnosis but ADHD, dyspraxia etc all have been mentioned , I cannot get anyone to agree to refer him though- everyone says it is someone else's job. My third child has fairly severe autism- he is verbal but hard to understand and despite being bright is like the loveliest, sweetest toddler- except he is 8. My final child (and he really is, clearly my genes are not worth passing on) is being assessed and slowly watched for ASD, I would place bets on a diagnosis of Asperger's when he is about seven. Currently he is 'just' an extremely anxious, scared self limiting child with severe food issues.

I live with my husband who is a good, bright hard working man- and who has developed mental health problems since the diagnoses were received. He has good medical care but when under stress it tends to pop above the surface: he is under stress, he has exams coming up.

This week is the week I too was diagnosed with depression- it has been ascribed to my carer role but it isn't that at all. I know what triggers it and I think it says a lot about the horrible media campaigns to turn the population into 'good' and 'bad' camps, with working full time being the distinguishing factor.

You see, I am not who they think I am. I am someone with plans and hopes. Dependency was never on the agenda and I do not intend for it to be my future either. This week I watched my husband draw up plans for an office for his business with pride; now, had he not after redundancy gone straight to retrain and set up a business and instead languished on unemployment benefits there would be options for financial help. There are none: it has taken 3 years of graft to get to this point. Oddly when the new Tax Credit rules come in he will not count as working for 2 months- despite a FT course (he studies stage and theatre lighting design, a technology subject with a strong electronics focus- you know, technology: the stuff the Government raves about as the future), and PT work, and coping with his MH issues and a lot of help with the boys. Not because of his hours but because as yet they don't pay minimum wage (they will when he qualifies)- if 7am - 11pm each day is not work I dare not think what is!

In June I will be looking for work as once hubby (I do apologise for the term, it is for wont of an easier one) qualifies he can then share childcare- to say his university is not set up for carers is to put it mildly! Had I been on JSA I would qualify for help with this; if I were under a certain age employers would potentially receive help with my wages, but having been a carer fulfilling a valuable societal role that saves the state pounds every week (compare residential care over a thousand pound per week with £56 PW approx Carer's Allowance...) and nothing: there is no help with the more complex childcare needs, no help with schemes to encourage employers to hire us or finding part time work.

So you could argue then that this reflects a Governmental view that my role is valuable, yes? Certainly the Government likes to trot that one out: we are portrayed as angels, paragons of virtue. This is not true: we are pretty bog standard parents in their usual infinite variety who lost out in the disability lottery. Nothing more or less.

So- why the demonisation then? Recently I saw Carer's Allowance classed as an unemployment benefit explicitly for the first time in the media; there is talk about the 'Economically Inactive'- a group that includes carers, the disabled, students as well as the unemployed and those who are stay at home parents or just don't need to work. I read about how we need to encourage all these people back to work - to what jobs?

It's the same lack of logic that tells people they must work an extra 5 years in their current job until retirement then expresses surprise that there is high youth unemployment when all those jobs cease to be available! Please! if you are going to change the goalposts, at least accept the inevitable outcomes.

Policy in the UK is in a mess. Seriously. On one hand there is no work; on the other we penalise those who do not work. People say it is a consequence of the financial state- but no. Lower expenditure etc might be but the media demonisation? not at all. Compassion is not ruled out by tightened outgoings.

My message? think of the people behind the numbers. 122 jobs lost at a local employer this week: that's not just a further drain on the state and a waste of talent, but 122 families now petrified for the future, and over Christmas too. Real people, real lives.

And of course a carer isn't just £55.60pw approx outgoings (Carer's Allowance is not a passport benefit to others in the way that Income Support for example is) , a carer is someone who has dreams, plans, a need for dignity and self respect too. Every time that article is published about claimants having better and easier lives / people faking disability claims / is ADHD a real disorder?- that steals a little of that dignity. When you re-label working people as unemployed on a random matter of hours without looking at the background to their lives- that steals their pride. When you tell someone in pain that their pain is not enough to get help; or someone that their child's needs cannot be met- it destroys lives.

And crucially for the economy it makes it that bit harder for us to rebuild lives, find ways to work around the stresses and challenges- whether that is retraining or starting a business.

What people need is a ladder out of dependency: training help, job search support, decent support to start up themselves- not the 'I don't know about that sort of sector but I wanted to meet you' I had from the local council start up guru when I went to see them recently.

We, the dependent, want a way out. This Government has a choice of whether they offer that or instead marginalise us into a homogeneous undeserving mass that they can then quietly write off to a life of misery under some myth of laziness, fraud, and (as per IDS this week) rubbish about how extra money would just be spent on drugs and beer- er no. It would have allowed me to put the heating on this morning. It is 3 degrees in my living room and spell checking this will take hours as my fingers are frozen. Cheers for that!

For some reason the state has chosen the second of my options above, but the route to recovery is faster if they choose the first: if I could get my start up business then I could maybe employ someone, for example. Pay more taxes. Yes! I want to pay more taxes! I am, it would seem, the opposite of the only winners in all this: the investment bankers. Strange huh?

Want to do more?

Sign Pats Petition to have the Government STOP and THINK about the impact of cuts on carers and people with disabilities supported by CarersUK, Scope, CarerWatch and Afiya Trust

All we want for Christmas is a fair benefits system, petition by Mind.

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@ukequality
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@NIMHgov
@NatAutisticSoc
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