To think we’re returning to a time of institutional welfare?

"In response to the £100000 respite care comments. If your child attends a setting and leaves without useful independence skills or basic qualifications depending on their ability then i'd call it expensive respite and certainly not education."

It is education but regardless of what you personally want to call it, care or education is going to be expensive for that child because they are going to need specialist support from multiple staff.

well we can't do much about global issues affecting children in other countries can we ? Except campaign and financially support those who.are making a difference there.
But ..that doesn't give us the right to.throw our own vulnerable children under the bus so that they experience the maximum deprivation and suffering possible does it ? Removing them from their families and putting them into care facilities to centralise costs ( asylums if you want to use the old fashioned term ) as is being advocated for by the OP is not going to be the answer and withdrawing funding for childtens complex needs would lead to many deaths which I assume you would find unacceptable. ( please God you find it unacceptable )
And let's follow your argument to it's logical conclusion...
Anyone playing sport who.injures themselves should not expect treatment because they choose to do it.
Car accident victims ( hell any accident victim come to.that ) should not expect help because they took the risk when they got in the car.
As for people who drink, smoke or are overweight. Well you.are on your own because you brought it on yourself.
If it is OK to deprive children of any quality.of life because they have the misfortune to be born disabled then we need to apply that to all sectors of society .
And referring to SEN provision as respite is , as I pointed out earlier, is still offensive.Education is more than exam results .

We send our rubbish abroad to be picked over by children looking for recyclables to sell in order for them to eat.
We use phones and other tech containing metals that have been mined by children.
We wear clothes made by children in sweatshops.
We make and sell weapons that kill children.
We have do billions in trade with countries that allow children to be married off.
So much of our countries income comes from the exploitation of children so you can't really say that every life is precious when you benefit from it.
It boils down to the simple fact that if you choose to have children it's your job to support them. People relying on the state and taxpayers for every aspect of their lives is what why this country is in a financial mess and massive changes to the welfare state will be made. I don't say this with glee but with sadness because this is what we chose through greed and entitlement and the poorest and most vulnerable will suffer for it.

In response to the £100000 respite care comments. If your child attends a setting and leaves without useful independence skills or basic qualifications depending on their ability then i'd call it expensive respite and certainly not education.

Institutional welfare like in the good old days... 😕

You want to bring back workhouses and the Poor Law?

As a disabled pensioner, I don’t require carers, and if I did, I would have to pay for them.

So, am I ok? 🤷‍♀️

I don’t need to think about it. I have personal experience of nearly 30 years from two DDs, who can die at any time, mixing all that time with other parents of SEN children; or spousal carers (in the carers group) and have never come across people getting £100,000 of respite and taxis, costing £50,000 pa as @titbumwillypoo wrote about. I am curious to know what their evidence is for that assertion?

The spousal carers for people with dementia get a few hours a month from a charity, so they can attend the carers’ group meetings. I don’t know how they cope!

No, it almost certainly would end up costing the government more but at least it would severely diminish the quality of life and curtail the freedom of disabled children and adults, which I am sure would please some of the horrible mean-spirited posters on here who are horrified at the idea of disabled people actually having any enjoyment of life. Just look at the countless outraged posts about disabled people daring to go on holiday or out for a meal when they should be sat at home in an empty room rocking back and forth!

👏👏👏

Which probably wouldn't be much cheaper anyway.

The respite is 4,000 a month that gives us 50 hours a week of home carers and then 200.00 a nonth activity budget.

the 50 hours can be used outside of home so for carers to take DC out
then we have 22 nights hospice nights funded a year.

I don’t know if the pp’s DC does, but some DC with organ failure and equipment/machinery do receive respite outside of the home. The majority don’t have transport to respite, a minority do.

LAs like to dodge their duties, but one element that should be considered as part of carer’s assessment is participation in work for those where that is relevant.

In terms of respite I can help you. I have 2 disabled teens. both with autism and MH issue and one with severe learning difficulties on top and needing 24/7 supervision. We do get respite. 3h per week. It's not for me to work but to enable me to spend some quality time with my other (disabled child). I get no help or support to work. I work when the DC are in school or late in the evening weekends (part time only as I cannot fit a full time role into my life on top of caring 70-80h per week). Finances are very tight as you will be pleased to hear. Respite is a support worker picking DC up. We get the 'hours' funded but have to pay for everything ourselves - for buses or taxis for DC and the support worker as well as for all activities. It costs me £20 per week. No taxis for us. I have no idea where people get the idea from.

also, there is no such thing as respite to enable parents of disabled children to work. Why do you think so many of us are trapped in low paid part time work or unable to work at all?

Can you not read? Child is attached to a machine due to organ failure. I very much doubt this child is touring respite centres by taxis. 😐

I didn’t mean care for DC at home. Was this to enable you to work?

I meant respite for you, her parent? Did DD get sent by taxis, costing £50,000 pa to respite centres, costing £100,000 pa?

I can sort of answer this 🤣🤣

we get school fees ( 70,000 ) paid for
and 4,000 a month in PA
plus a 1-1 32.5 hours from the la for school hours ( not paid for by school ) who attends home when not in school for tutoring.

this is however a child with CP, autism, and an organ failure attached to machinery.
the pa is defo a higher end package than others I know.

maybe more home respite and home tutors for some children.

These aren’t the cheap options. EOTAS/EOTIS is already possible when it is inappropriate for provision to be made in a school. It isn’t the cheap option. It includes far more than tuition. Proper EOTAS/EOTIS packages costs just as much if not more than many SS. Most still have transport costs. LAs hate proper EOTAS/EOTIS packages.

There is far more to education than just academics and/or working towards employment. It is shortsighted not to offer proper support to children. Without support now, many will need a greater amount of support throughout adult life, which will cost more. For example, it can be the difference between needing a residential placement as an adult or not. It might be the difference between being in contact with the justice system or not, between needing 2:1 support in the community and 1:1 support as an adult. Or the difference between 24/7 support and support for only part of the time.

Care at home isn’t cheap either.

There should be a poll on the SN boards to see how many parents get pa £100,000 of respite and £50,000 for taxis to take them there? From what I have heard, parents are lucky if they get 2 nights pcm, which I guess might be £500 a night (based on the current cost of an inpatient MH unit). Some seem to get awarded social support; but get told in reality, there is no one to supply it.

I have never heard of anyone getting a taxi provided for respite, because LAs rarely fund anything they don’t have to - SEN school transport is a legal duty.

The DFE High Needs Block spending will cover LA special schools and the support for children with EHC plans in mainstream. Some of the specialist schools are run by non profit making charities. That leaves a small percentage of children in privately run specialist schools. Anyway, the answer lay in the hands of LAs - it would be far cheaper to provide for those children in special schools within their county; and I am sure most parents would prefer to have their children in day schools nearby; but LAs chose instead to use private schools?

@titbumwillypoo needs to provide some evidence for their wild assertions? I am sure, if they were making such wild assertions about an ethnic minority, it would be seen as racism?

"While we agree this post is definitely controversial, we aren't sure it breaks guidelines. "

If it might be breaking guidelines it should be taken down. I've been on here for a while and 5 years ago this thread would have been taken down. It seems 'clicks' are more important now than removing offensive threads.

I reported that post and got the same nonsense response as the poster above. It seems it is fine to propose limiting the freedom and education of disabled children and referring to them in terms normally used of animals ( though to be fair the poster in question did admit it wasn't the best choice of word when challenged ...holding pen being the offensive term ) .
They simply don't seem to get it.

Not that long ago when they were just rounded up and disposed of. And here we are again only it's Britain in 2025 not Germany in 1941. Of course we could just go Victorian with rope picking and bottle blacking. Perhaps have children going up chimneys.

I am glad you posted this illuminating response as it gives credence to the point I have been trying to make, that leaving an outrageously offensive OP like this to stand emboldens similarly minded bigots to share their own abhorrant views.
Here is a poster who thinks that it is wasteful to spend money on the education and care of disabled children as most of them will never be able to work. The clear implication here being that, if they are not going to be able to contribute financially to society when they are adults, they are a worthless drain on society and no resources should be put into their health and well-being. Your views on the value of human life are extremely disturbing since they seem to be entirely reliant on a child's future earning potential.
Your final sentence in which you appear to be relishing in the imminent starvation and death of disabled people if the welfare state collapses is also both extremely chilling and disturbing. I doubt that you have much direct experience of disabled children if you can hold their happiness and even their lives in such contempt, but, even if this is the case, your inability to even show any empathy for disabled children is most concerning, bordering on sociopathic.

I know I said I'd leave this poisonous thread alone now but I have finally had a response from a mod which I wanted to share. Here is the relevant section:
"While we agree this post is definitely controversial, we aren't sure it breaks guidelines. She's floating a (fairly outlandish) theory but she's not actually 'calling for it' to happen. It also looks like lots of people have challenged the opinion robustly on the thread already, which is probably a more effective outcome than us simply removing the post altogether."
So, from this, I would surmise that MN is fine with hate speech as long as it's quite extreme, which is an interesting stance for the site to take. I am interested in whether MN would give an equally indulgent shrug of the shoulders to a similar post which suggested removing children from any other group from their families and incarcerating them in state-run institutions. Not that I am wanting to see such a thread as the mere idea is despicable to me, I am just interested to see if it is only when applied to disabled kids that, in MN's opinion, this is merely an 'outlandish theory', or if they would feel the same about the wholesale segregation and detention of any other group of children if expounded in a post on here.

well the better way is to stop private firms profiting then surely. Because it is the same with residential care and childrens homes alongside outsourced wheelchair services etc etc.
outsourcing care to private companies is a licence to print but the government seems intent on continuing down.that road.
So maybe you should direct your ire at them instead of at innocent disabled children by trying to.limit their lives as a money saving exercise.

I will agree with your comment on holding pens, shall we call them expensive childcare instead? Because in many special schools there is no education going on. Children will leave without qualifications or skills because of the nature of the system. You can't stick a bunch of children with varying and opposing needs in a classroom and expect miracles. Nowhere did I say they should be stuck at home or denied an education and nowhere did I say ALL disabled children are disrupting the education of everyone else.
What I did say is the current system is unsustainable. Total council spending on home-to-school transport for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) in the UK was £1.73 billion in 2023/24 on top of The overall UK spend on SEND provision was estimated at over £10 billion per year as of late 2024. That's a tenth of the education budget and a massive chunk of that is going to private business in the form of profit not education. Whilst private equity firms are allowed to profit from disability the costs will only rise whilst children will get less. My point was that there has to be a better way.

your attitude to disabled children and their education is frankly disgusting. Special schools are NOT holding pens ( what a thoroughly disgusting term and implies you see disabled children as akin to animals ! ).
Disabled children are entitled to a life and should not be expected to be stuck at home because they are not deemed worthy of a life and education. AND why do you assume all disabled kids are disrupting education for everyone else?
Unbelievable !

But it is about the money, and the current system is unsustainable.
"We can’t afford to pay poor pensioners to live alone in large council houses with a team of regular carers dropping in."
Should pensioners/anyone be able to under-occupy a council house? I'd say no if they receive any housing benefit, if they're paying their own rent crack on. If a person needs more than a couple of visits a day then it would make more sense for them to be some sort of supported accommodation as they're no longer living independently.
"We can’t afford to pay two parents to care full-time for a disabled child, whilst also funding their entire household."
We can and we should pay parents to look after their seriously disabled child, what we shouldn't be doing is paying £50,000 on taxis to take children to £100,000 a year respite care. Councils are spending millions every year that is going to private businesses on children who will never be in employment. I think the idea of access to education needs looking at and maybe more home respite and home tutors for some children.
"We can’t continue pushing children with complex needs who can’t function in mainstream schools into them, where they can’t learn and disrupt everyone else."
Agreed, see above point. I think for many primary school age children parents having access to funded respite care and home tutors would be better than the current system. No special school can cater for everyone and many are just holding pens. Economically it makes no sense to spend £50,000 on taxis for a year so a parent can go out to a £25,000 job. So make the parents life easier for a few years by giving them enough to stay home and let the child gain enough maturity for organised education.

Throughout the world everyday, people face a simple choice of work or starve. We've had it good in the UK for a long time but those days are coming to an end. It won't matter who gets voted in over the next few years because economically those that don't work are going to have to survive on less and less and only the most profoundly disabled will be getting any help.