Respite Care for Disabled Children

[KateMumsnet]

You might have clocked that we recently joined up with Every Disabled Child Matters to urge local authorities to tell us how much money they will be spending on short breaks for families with disabled children in 2010/11.

Since then, we've been in touch with the main charities that work with disabled children, and we're thrilled that so far Scope, Action For Children, Mencap, Sense and Treehouse (the national charity for autism education) have pledged to support the campaign.

We'll be posting up their messages of support on the Respite Campaign page over the next few days, and we'll let you know as other organisations come on board.

If you haven't yet emailed your local authority, now's your chance! It only takes a minute, we promise.

This is an excellent idea, but why just children? Surely it should also be for anyone who has to provide 24h care to a member of their family?

Also was wondering whether some mention should be made of the fragmentary respite carers get. Like 6h spread over a week, when 6h at one go might mean a night's unbroken sleep for the carer.

This thread needs a sticky, so I've reported it to MNTowers.

wow, I have just done all on this link, and by the time I have come back to post this, have had a reply from a county councillor!
think it might have been pre prepared though as it doesn't really answer the questions exactly!

Is there a similar body doing this for Scotland and Wales?

Have also joined the facebook page so hope my friends will see this too

A good start - hope it widens to include carers for other groups of people as well. :)

Um, I have no problem with MN pairing with EDCM and focussing a campaign, but justabout you may wish to remember that many parents are disabled, with children helping care for them.

Which is just as relevant for a parenting site.

Good luck with this. A fantastically good cause.

I've done it, hope the campaign works.

Done and passed onto some contacts.

I very important issue and personally close to us.

I think thats a good point about respite for disabled adults, adult services are also a likely victim of council cuts

have done the email

Great idea will do the email ASAP

Is it because we're Mumsnet that we are concentrating on parents that care?

I think there's a case for both parent carers and child carers, may siblings help to care for their disabled brothers and sisters too. Young Carers projects are just as essential as respite services where the disabled child is cared for to give families a break.

The important thing in this issue is that we make the government ring fence the extra funding they are claiming to be throwing at respite services, so that the money can't be used for anything else. Otherwise, it will just go into the general coffers and can be used for other things. As of yet, I am not seeing any improvement in my local respite services, in fact they are closing the overnight respite home for those with severe and medical disabilities and relocating them to the next town, meaning that many families without transport will lose their much needed support services. This new respite will only provide 3 beds per night, whereas the old centre had 5, meaning that resources will be stretched even more, and those in need will not get the support they need.