Council cuts: The true cost (From Droitwich Advertiser)

Council cuts: The true cost

7:10am Monday 6th July 2009

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A SIX-YEAR-OLD girl with severe learning difficulties has been told funding is no longer available for her to attend a holiday club.

Emily Wilson attends a special school during term-time, but in the past has spent her holidays at the Smart Hearts club at Worcester’s Bishop Perowne CE College.

Her mum Jean Wilson says the club gives her much-needed respite and allows her daughter – who also has attention deficit hyper-activity disorder (ADHD) – to mix with children from mainstream schools.

Now she has been told funding is no longer available for Emily – a pupil at Fort Royal Community Primary School in Worcester – to attend the club five days a week. Instead she’ll be able to attend just one or two days a week.

Mrs Wilson was recommended to the club earlier this year by Worcestershire County Council’s Family Information Service.

The county council has blamed a shortfall in government funding for the decision to limit Emily’s allocation.

“I know this decision affects many other families in the Worcester area and I feel very strongly that this situation needs to be brought into the public domain,” said 47-year-old Mrs Wilson, of Chelmsford Drive, Ronkswood, Worcester. “I feel like I have hit a brick wall. The irony is the team told me about this club and now they take it away from me. I just don’t know what to do.

“Parents of children who have various disabilities struggle every day with various problems, we get very little support from any quarter and this seems to me inhumane. I now have one week in which to get the (county council’s) inclusion team to reverse their decision or my daughter will have no chance of attending her holiday club this summer. This would not happen if my daughter did not have disabilities.”

Sallie Wyatt, owner of the club, said staff loved Emily and were saddened that the cuts meant they could no longer employ a member of staff to care for her on a one-to-one basis.

“I have fought really hard for this. Unfortunately Emily’s mum isn’t the only one and I will continue to support these families as best I can,” she said.

A spokesman for Worcestershire County Council said they had a budget to give children with additional needs and disabilities access to out-of-school and holiday activities.

He said the council was committed to allocating funding fairly, ensuring that children in mainstream and specialist settings receive equal support.

“This budget entitles every child in Worcestershire, referred by health and children’s services professionals, to two days per week of one-to-one support in a setting over a four-week period,” he said. “There are currently 250 children in Worcestershire who need this support.

“In previous years we have received additional government funding, but due to an overall reduction in central government budgets, the same additional funding has not been allocated to the county council this year.”

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