Family Fund grants: the who, what and how to apply
with Jim Paterson, The Family Fund Earlier in the year, the government announced it was giving an additional £10 million to the Family Fund during the pandemic, to families who …
Category: Disability Financial Help
What the Personal Wheelchair Budget means for disabled people in England
with Clare Dangerfield, Campaigning and Public Affairs Manager, Newlife charity If you or your child uses a wheelchair, you will know how expensive it can be to try to get …
Challenging opaque, illegal social care plans for disabled adults
With Belinda Schweher, CEO, social care legal charity CASCAIDr Anyone who’s tried to get social care help for a young adult, or to get care listed as “educational” support in …
Disabled Person’s Trusts: When making a will is not enough
Before you have children, we have a reasonable expectation that they will grow up, leave home and live their own lives. But when your child has a disability that means their …
Legal grey zone lets health body strip vital funding from disabled children
Dominic is 11 and now in his final year at a mainstream primary school. He is very happy there and despite very complex medical issues and relying on a powered …
The Care Act when transitioning from children’s to adult social care
One of the biggest concerns for parents of disabled young people who are about to pass 18, is the move to adult services. Sometimes it goes smoothly, but often it …
How will #Brexit affect children and young people with Disabilities?
I was going to start this piece with “As the dust settles after the #Brexit vote…”, but every day the dust seems to get more dense and choking as the enormity …
The real message the EHCP stats should give to the Ministers
Yesterday’s new SEND statistics reported worrying progress on SEND reform up to January 2016, amid soothing words from the Ministers in charge that the reforms are “boosting the life chances …
Disabled Students Allowance cuts: Is it time to extend the EHCP to universities?
What do you call it when someone says one thing but their actions show they really mean something quite different? There’s a few words and none of them are very …
How a charity is helping disabled children with reading challenges learn to love books
We all know that reading to our children is vitally important and helps get them started in reading for themselves. But for children who are struggling readers or who have …
How Sir Stelios is offering entrepreneurs with disabilities a chance for a £50k business boost
It’s always been tougher for young people with disabilities to get ahead, whether it’s through college, into a job or even starting their own business. If you are such a …
Forget festivals, I prefer Disability exhibitions
Tania: Today we’d like to introduce you to a new columnist, although followers of SEND blogs will already be familiar with her Premeditations blog. MrBoosMum, as she is known, has already …
Special Needs parents outraged at use of Sam Cam’s bereavement as election tool
The article on Samantha Cameron that appeared in The Daily Telegraph on Monday has caused a storm of outrage among Special Needs Jungle readers on our Facebook page. In an article …
Disabled Students Allowance gets a year’s reprieve: Is it practical or political?
Hark! I hear screeching tyres swivelling in a U-turn.. or is it just the sound of a General Election approaching? Surely that can’t be the reason for the most recent …
How the respite of a Short Break can keep a family together
Parents often talk to me about the unavailability and inaccessibility of respite. They are concerned that there is nothing available to them or their children or that they are not …
Dreaming Spires Await – but with no Disabled Students’ Allowance
I’ve been writing, nay, banging on, for some time about the way Higher Education students have been left out of the SEN reforms and the new Education Health and Care …
Personal Budgets and other SEN and Disability stories
Even though schools are closed for Easter, the Department for Education is still hard at work and managed to publish the Regulations for the new Personal Budgets to go along …
Cerebra supports a seat enabling family activities for disabled children
Cerebra, the charity that works improve the lives of children with brain-related conditions is aiming to make supermarket trips and family outings with disabled children a little bit easier. Because …
Contact A Family extends free benefits helpline service
The brilliant charity, Contact a Family, is from today offering an extended helpline service. Contact a Family has long been a source of information about the benefits system for parents …
Help kick-start a project to make low-cost Sensory Stories!
Tania writes: So many of the people I meet who are involved with special needs have an absolute passion for helping children with SEN & disabilities achieve as much as …