– Funds set to boost employability and supported education in east Scotland –
Local housebuilder Barratt Developments Scotland has pledged to support the nation’s recovery from the pandemic with a £57,500 investment in employability and education, including £20,000 for the east of Scotland.
Two Edinburgh charities which aim to bolster employability and promote a fair and inclusive education for vulnerable young people have been selected to receive a share of the funds – employability charity WorkingRite and education charity Kindred.
Alison Condie, Managing Director at Barratt Developments East Scotland, said:“Employability and education are two areas which will be vital in aiding Scotland’s recovery from the pandemic – which is why we are focusing our efforts on supporting charities carrying out this work day to day.
“It’s always been the Barratt way to give back to the communities in which we have a presence, and it’s been great to hear how the donations will help WorkingRite and Kindred support people into employment and give young people the best chance to succeed at such a challenging time.”
Employability
With redundancy levels across the UK hitting record highs, the need for new opportunities and reskilling programmes has never been greater. Barratt’s donation to WorkingRite comes at a vital time and will ensure that young people have access to potentially life changing support.
WorkingRite has a proven track record in helping individuals improve their prospects and maximise their potential by matching a young person to a small business in their local community, where they learn valuable skills ‘on-the-job’.
Barratt Developments itself is a major champion of employability. Its graduate and apprenticeship recruitment programmes have continued in spite of the pandemic, and it is currently working with the veteran community to create opportunities for those leaving the armed forces.
Sandy Campbell, Founder of WorkingRite, said:“WorkingRite greatly appreciate the generous donation from Barratt Homes. As we emerge from Covid restrictions, young people from disadvantaged backgrounds need all the help they can get to achieve a working future.
“Barratt’s donation will help make that happen – by funding the training and mentoring we provide for those of our young people who are hoping for careers in the construction trades.”
Supported education
Also receiving a donation is Kindred, a parent-led organisation that helps support children with disabilities and long-term conditions. Last year, Kindred supported hundreds of families with its services, which include a team at Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children and a community team that works across its services with parents of children with exceptional healthcare needs.
Sophie Pilgrim, Director of Kindred, said: “We are delighted to accept an amazing donation from Barratt Homes East Scotland. We support over 700 families of children with complex needs each year from across Scotland.
“Living in a safe and comfortable home has been especially important to families of children with disabilities over the last year. Kindred has supported 98 families to find the right, adapted accommodation so we are particularly pleased to be supported by a housing provider.
“Our hospital team will be moving to the new Royal Hospital for Children and Young People Edinburgh and we will use the funds from Barratt to help us manage to move to our own new home! A big thank you from our staff and families.”
A leading charity and coalition of leading organisations has expressed its disappointment that special schools are not set to re-open and has urged the Scottish Government to reconsider its position. It has also urged that teachers and support staff at these schools be among the priority groups being vaccinated.
The call has been made by Kindred, an advocacy organisation supporting parents of children with complex needs. Its director, Sophie Pilgrim, has written to the Scottish Government’s deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education, John Swinney MSP, urging it to reopen special schools to full time-placements who want to return.
The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, an alliance of leading organisations that campaigns to improve services for vulnerable children and young people has also given its backing to the call.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland special schools have remained open, whereas in Scotland there is a patchy picture, with some local authorities keeping all special schools open while others are offering pupils a few days at school each week, or no provision at all.
In addition, some independent grant-aided special schools appear to have closed altogether and reverted to ‘on-line’ learning for their children, even though it is evident that many of the children cannot engage in this form of learning.
In her letter, Ms Pilgrim has expressed her concern that with this second lockdown, children’s physical and mental health is also degenerating as they are not able to access the therapy and support required.
It notes that parents single-handily cannot provide that treatment and therapy for the children, without the support of the schools, highlighting that attendance at a special school goes beyond a child not getting an education, it is the therapeutic support that those children are getting and the respite support for the parents. The charity has heard that some children are being very violent towards their parents or their siblings, behaviours which are very hard to unlearn
Parents of children with complex needs are also in many cases experiencing physical and mental breakdown, impacting on their long-term capacity to care for their children.
In Scotland there is a presumption of mainstreaming, meaning that only children with the most complex needs are given a place within specialist provision, which is delivered through a rigorous process of assessment. There is no doubt that all these children would be classed as vulnerable and these are children who cannot be left alone and unsupervised and some require 2:1 care.
The UK Government has stated: “Special schools should continue to welcome and encourage pupils to attend full-time where the parent/carer wishes for their child to be able to attend. Special post-16 settings should continue to welcome and encourage students to attend as per their usual timetable where the young person wishes to attend. [1]
On these grounds, special schools have been kept open in the other nations of the United Kingdom.
Sophie Pilgrim commented: “We are really disappointed that special schools are not set to reopen. As a charity we have been speaking to parents of children with complex needs and they tell us that their children’s physical and mental health is degenerating because they are simply unable to maintain therapy and support within the home environment.
“The weather is now too cold for many parents to take children out. Added to a loss of routine, this has created further stress and anxiety for these children, often leading to challenging behaviour not seen before. Many parents in turn are sleep deprived and often neglecting their own medical and care needs.
“Special schools have a vital role to play, providing respite from care for parents, as well as therapy, education and social engagement for our most vulnerable children. Without these reopening we will pay a heavy price as a society.
“We would urge that Scotland follows the lead shown by England, Wales and Northern Ireland and we re-open our special schools to full time placements for those who want to return.“
Kenny Graham from the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition also backed this call: “There is a current patchwork approach to opening special schools across Scotland and we fully add our support to this call by Kindred to ensure that these are fully reopened.
“Many of those we are supporting are finding the current situation incredibly challenging, with greatly increased social exclusion through being at home.
“The loss of routine has proven extremely difficult for many, impacting in many cased on both the children and their parents. It is vital for those who want to, that they have the opportunity to return to school and have full access to the care and support they feel they need.”
Claudia’s son Christian is 11 years old and has complex needs, uses a wheelchair and is visually impaired. He also has respiratory problems, but the most difficult issue is his uncontrollable seizure activity. Christian is fed by tube, requires constant suction and needs an apnoea monitor during the night because sometimes he stops breathing.
Christian normally attends Oaklands School in Edinburgh but is now at home full-time.
Claudia has two other boys (aged 14 and 15) to look after and her husband is working at home.
Christian gets a day of respite at Calareidh, which is an NHS facility supports the needs of children with very complex needs.
Claudia however notes she is:
“Really struggling to do the physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and various sensory therapies that Christian needs and I feel that I am unable to fully meet his care needs. These were previously done at the school and with another lockdown, everything has stopped with a huge impact on Christian’s engagement and progress.”
Juggling Christian’s needs, medical, personal care, therapy and education with home-working and home-schooling his older brothers is also challenging because each one needs a dedicated space, so that means that Christian and Claudia have to be in only one room for most of the day. Christian would be developing better at school because the staff are trained to help in his development and Claudia is concerned that she can do a fraction of what they do at school.
Claudia believes all special schools should be open, with precautions in place, and offering children full provision during lockdown.
Kirsty Watt, Edinburgh
Eilidh Watt is 13 years old and has complex needs including learning disability and Autism Spectrum Disorder. Her mum, Kirsty Watt, is a single parent.
Eilidh is non-verbal, has balance and coordination problems and is tube-fed. She has intractable epilepsy and can experience as many as 10 seizures a day, with her oxygen needing to be monitored. Each night Kirsty stays up until 11.30pm or 12 to ensure that Eilidh’s tube-feeding has been completed.
Eilidh is usually up at least once in the night and sometimes on three occasions. Kirsty has to be up again at 7am to try get her ready for the school bus.
From being at Braidburn special school full time, which was a real godsend for the family, she is now at school in Edinburgh three days a week and has two night of respite care each week,
Kirsty notes that “Being at school is very important for those with special needs as they have a routine and home learning has left Eilidh incredibly unsettled and her behaviour can become quite unsettled.”
Maya James, Edinburgh
Maya’s son Dillan (above) is 10 years old and is at Prospect Bank School. He is now attending school only two days a week following the lockdown.
Maya has three children and says that she is able to explain to the other children about Coronavirus including her youngest who is 4 years old.
Dillan however has no understanding and with the loss of routine “his whole world has collapsed, he is very distressed and has become aggressive.”
Maya says the family is not coping and there is nowhere to take the children.
A leading charity has raised concerns over an apparent Scottish Government u-turn which sees unpaid carers now no longer included in the “first-wave” of COVID-19 vaccinations.
The concern has been raised by Kindred, an advocacy organisation supporting parents of children with complex needs, which has warned of the impact on these children if their parents contract the virus and are unable to provide care.
The charity had made the vaccine call in a letter to Health Cabinet Secretary, Jeane Freeman MSP, on 11th November on the back of a report it published highlighting the “devastating” impact of the pandemic lockdown on families of children with exceptional health needs.
On 4th December, it all became clear in a “Vaccine stakeholder note” from the Scottish Government Directorate for Mental Health and Social Care that “carers and their families are not included in the prioritisation list.”
Director of the charity, Sophie Pilgrim, has written to the Cabinet Secretary on the back of this apparent u-turn on her earlier commitment (letter available on request), noting:
“At this time of national crisis, it seems we are prepared to ignore the plight of our most vulnerable children. These children, with shorter lives, have lost out on therapy, education and social opportunities. Their parents, on whom they are totally dependent, are exhausted to the point of burnout.
“In Scotland, we pride ourselves in aspiring to be the ‘best country in the world for children to grow up’. We should dare to be different and stand up for our children who are most in need. I urge you to include unpaid carers amongst the first to receive the vaccine.”
The repeated call comes on the back of a survey undertaken of the parents of children with complex health needs.1
The results show that:
93 percent of these families experienced an impact on their ability to meet their children’s medical and care needs due to the pandemic; 63 percent said that the impact of the pandemic on their ability to provide care was ‘big’ or ‘severe’.
Two out of every three parents who took part in the survey said sleep deprivation was one of the main factors that impacted their ability to care for their children. It was the norm for these parents to get an average of five hours of broken sleep per night. Kindred has called for an urgent need to investigate the provision of overnight respite care across Scotland.
Over a third of parents received no respite care before the pandemic and this dropped to 60 per cent after the start of the pandemic. This highlights the importance of schools in supporting parents and giving them a break from caring. Almost all the children attended special school with access to therapy, and the expertise of Additional Support for Learning staff. There is no doubt that schools are preventing crisis and family breakdown where a child has high care needs.
Sophie Pilgrim, Director of Kindred, commented: “This apparent u-turn by the Scottish Government is deeply devastating news for the families of children with complex needs and life limiting conditions.
“At this time of national crisis, it seems we are prepared to ignore the plight of our most vulnerable children. These children, with shorter lives, have lost out on therapy, education and social opportunities. Their parents, on whom they are totally dependent, are exhausted to the point of burnout and simply cannot afford to get sick.
“In Scotland, we pride ourselves in aspiring to be the ‘best country in the world for children to grow up’. We should dare to be different and stand up for our children who are most in need.”
Alex Davey, from East Lothian, is fulltime carer to her six-year-old son, Benjamin, who has complex medical needs including tube-feeding, epilepsy and overnight ventilation.
“My key concern as Benjamin’s mother is that my husband and myself contract Covid-19, rendering us incapable of meeting his complex care needs, potentially for a long period of time.
“Early access to the vaccine is therefore imperative to ensure that families like ours can be sure that they can continue to care for their child.
“One can therefore only imagine our joy when we heard that unpaid carers would be among the first wave to receive the vaccine. We cheered, we celebrated, we called each other up and cried tears of pure relief. We were no longer overlooked.
“In fact, we are not just overlooked, we were cruelly misled and our hopes were built up, only to be dashed.
“We cannot understand why the Scottish Government has reneged on its commitment and we would urge it to do the honourable thing and honour the original commitment made.”
A leading charity is urging the Scottish Government to include parents of children with complex disabilities and life limiting conditions to be amongst the first to receive the promising COVID-19 vaccine.
The plea comes from Kindred, an advocacy organisation supporting parents of children with complex needs, which has warned of the impact on these children if their parents contract the virus and are unable to provide care.
The charity has released a report today (16th November) highlighting the “devastating” impact of the pandemic lockdown on families of children with exceptional health needs.
Kindred is calling for public acknowledgement of the extraordinary efforts of these parents, many of whom had started shielding weeks before lockdown, and has asked for a letter from the Scottish Government to families. Such a letter would enable parents to feel that their efforts had not gone unnoticed and, in some way, help them come to terms with the trauma experienced over this period.
The charity conducted a survey of parents from 17 local authorities to better understand the ramifications of the lockdown months on these vulnerable families in August 2020 as schools prepared to reopen.1
The results show that:
93 percent of these families experienced an impact on their ability to meet their children’s medical and care needs due to the pandemic; 63 percent said that the impact of the pandemic on their ability to provide care was ‘big’ or ‘severe’.
Two out of every three parents who took part in the survey said sleep deprivation was one of the main factors that impacted their ability to care for their children. It was the norm for these parents to get an average of five hours of broken sleep per night. Kindred has called for an urgent need to investigate the provision of overnight respite care across Scotland.
Over a third of parents received no respite care before the pandemic and this dropped to 60 per cent after the start of the pandemic. This highlights the importance of schools in supporting parents and giving them a break from caring. Almost all the children attended special school with access to therapy, and the expertise of Additional Support for Learning staff. There is no doubt that schools are preventing crisis and family breakdown where a child has high care needs.
The charity has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport, Jeane Freeman MSP, and to Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, John Swinney MSP, urging that these parents be given priority when distributing the recently announced vaccine.
The report provides evidence that parents were left caring entirely alone in the home environment. There was an even greater impact on single parents. Despite the high level of need of all the children, some parents did not even get a phone call from professionals during the pandemic. These parents fear falling sick and being unable to look after their vulnerable children.
This is the case for Alex Davey from East Lothian and her six-year-old son, Benjamin, who has complex medical needs including tube-feeding, epilepsy and overnight ventilation.
Alex received a letter instructing her that Benjamin met the criteria for shielding in March. For his safety all respite and at-home care services received were brought to a halt, leaving Alex and her husband to be the only people providing care for Benjamin and his two sisters. Since March, Benjamin has been hospitalised six times, often involving full-time ventilation in critical care.
Alex’s main concern is that she and her husband will themselves contract Covid-19, rendering them incapable of meeting Benjamin’s complex care needs, potentially for a long period of time.
Early access to the vaccine is therefore imperative according to Kindred to ensure that families like Alex’s can be sure that they can continue to care for their child.
Further recommendations to the Scottish Government:
The report shows a disparity between the experience of those families who received the support and advice from health professionals, particularly on shielding, compared to those who didn’t. On this evidence, Scottish Government is being urged to ensure that professionals contact parents and charities should be funded to provide peer support.
Siblings play a vital role in the care and support of a disabled brother or sister and Kindred is urging that Self-Directed Support is available for adult siblings to be paid as carers within the home in the event of another lockdown. (see case study of Dr Gael Gordon in Notes to Editors and image attached)
The needs of families for respite should be taken into consideration with regards to special schools, with consideration given to keeping them open in the event of a second lockdown and providing the resources to do this.
Sophie Pilgrim, Director of Kindred, commented: “Our report provides evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on families of children with complex needs and life limiting conditions.
“Anyone reading this report will be moved by their plight. Many families started shielding before schools closed with the loss of all care and support. Some of these children require two to one support in school and other care settings, and yet parents had to cope from March to August, many with no help at all.
“As the vaccine becomes available, we must prioritise parents who are providing medical care for their children and cannot afford to get sick themselves.
“Many parents received no respite care before the pandemic, and those that did lost their care with lockdown. Serious sleep deprivation puts parents at risk of depression, accidents and long-term conditions. One of the parents told us ‘I feel like I am drunk’. We found that many parents have to cope on five hours of broken sleep a night, well below the NHS recommendation of a minimum seven hours a night.
“We need to recognise the long-term exhaustion of these families. Special schools are all the more important and need to be supported to carry on their excellent work and to keep their doors open.
“Parents put their children first. And we must work together and ensure they are amongst the first to get the vaccine.“
An Edinburgh based charity that has helped to transform the lives of children with disabilities and other complex needs by supporting their families for over 25 years has launched a major fundraising appeal to prevent its doors from closing. Led by parents of children with disabilities, Kindred delivers an invaluable service for families of severely ill and/or disabled children in Scotland, providing help, support and advocacy in stressful situations where parents often don’t know where to turn.Continue reading Closure-threatened Kindred launches fundraising appeal
