Children’s Providers
Creating the right start in life, to play, to learn, to grow physically, emotionally and socially, to form friendships, to gain confidence and skills, are important to all children. Children and young people with learning disabilities may need particular assistance or support to ensure that they can successfully travel this path.
A number of Learning Disability Wales’ members provide services and support that assist the child or young person with a learning disability to develop. Assistance includes adoption & fostering, early intervention to support the child and the parent, pre-school care, short term care, person centred planning, advice and arbitration on special educational provision, therapy provision, advocacy, vocational training and leisure and sports activities.
The Welsh Assembly Government has been very active in developing ‘generic’ child care, social care and health policies; the challenge for the voluntary sector is to ensure that these generic policies fully address the needs of the child and young person with learning disabilities. On matters of special educational needs the Assembly has been less active and campaigning activity is steadily developing in Wales.
To date no one network has existed where Learning Disability Wales’ members in this community of interest have been able to come together to focus on the needs of children and young people with a learning disability.
There is now reason to be very optimistic about the future of Learning Disability Wales’ support of issues and organisations who work with children and young people with learning disabilities. During the last year Learning Disability Wales trustees took the view that in order to better support this sector the organisation should invest some of its reserves in a development post dedicated to issues around children and young people.
As a result Learning Disability Wales recently recruited Zoe Richards
as Children and Young People's Development Officer. Part of Zoe's
role will be to begin to organise the children's and young people
sector into a Learning Disability Wales 'community of interest'
Learning Disability Wales has been active in supporting the launch
of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign in Wales. This campaign,
started in England with Sainsbury Foundation funding and led by Contact
a Family, Mencap and the Council for Disabled Children, has the potential
for driving the rights of disabled children up the political agenda.
It is likely that other members of the Learning Disability Wales community
of interest around children and young people will get involved with
this campaign in the coming months.
Learning Disability Wales has campaigned on the transition process. It contributed written evidence to the Assembly’s Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills committee review of transition. Learning Disability Wales concluded that young people with learning disabilities were treated as second class students when it comes to vocational training, work experience and job finding.
For further information on the role of Children and Young People's Development Officer please Contact Us.
Our Children’s Providers trustee is Roger Bishop of Tros Gynal. To contact him please click here.
