Best Coalition or Collaboration

The Disabled Children’s Partnerships (DCP) #GiveItBack and #LeftInLockdown campaigns

This pandemic was isolating for me and my family. Advocating with the DCP has empowered me to find my voice, to share our story, making me feel heard and less alone.

The Campaign

The Disabled Children’s Partnership (DCP) ran parallel campaigns – #GiveItBack and #LeftInLockdown – to raise awareness of the impact that the pandemic had on the health of disabled children and families, and to continue fighting the long-standing inequalities in the provision of health and social care to disabled children.

Nearly 75% of disabled children saw their progress regress in the pandemic but years of cuts had already stretched the system. Only 4% of parent carers said they had enough support to care for their disabled child safely.

#LeftInLockdown provided a platform for the experiences of families with disabled children to be heard, and to influence government policy to meet the health and care needs of disabled children in COVID recovery.

#GiveItBack worked alongside #LeftInLockdown, calling on the Government to invest in disabled children’s services. They proposed a £50 million disabled children’s innovation fund, for a better future post-pandemic.

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awards

eA mum and her son, standing on the steps of Downing Street handing in their open letter and signatures. Photo credit: Arthur Edwards, The Sun

We are so pleased to have been shortlisted. It is testament to the hard work of many people across our 100 organisations, but even more so to the parent carers, children and young people who campaigned with us and shared their stories and experiences. They are why the DCP exists, and it is their voices that make our campaigns so powerful.”

 

Stephen Kingdom, Campaign Manager

awards

A mum and her son, standing on the steps of Downing Street handing in their open letter and signatures. Photo credit: Arthur Edwards, The Sun

We are so pleased to have been shortlisted. It is testament to the hard work of many people across our 100 organisations, but even more so to the parent carers, children and young people who campaigned with us and shared their stories and experiences. They are why the DCP exists, and it is their voices that make our campaigns so powerful.”

Stephen Kingdom, Campaign Manager

The Change

The DCP successfully secured a £30 million fund for disabled children’s social care. This is a vital first step towards creating a fairer system of support for families with disabled children and opens the door for future investment.

It will make a tangible difference for many parent carers, supporting them with respite provision from caring to help alleviate their stress, social isolation, exhaustion and anxiety. It will also support the development of disabled young people.

The fund will be evaluated and evidence will be used to make the case for further investment in services.

The campaign pressured the Government to release official guidance telling local authorities to prioritise families with disabled children to obtain the respite care they needed, and for therapists to resume all services that disabled children needed for their development. It increased the weighting of COVID recovery funds for pupils in specialist settings, allowing more schools with disabled children to purchase more essential services like therapies.

Finally, the DCP campaigned for disabled young people with education, health and care plans to be able to repeat Year 13 due to the interruptions they received in their development, which was approved by the Government.

The Future

In the first quarter of 2022, the #CountDisabledChildrenIn campaign called on local councils to prioritise disabled children’s social care in their 2022-23 budgets.

The latest campaign – #SENDABetterMessage – responds to the Government’s SEND Green Paper and reform programme. It will encourage parents and campaigners to respond to the consultation and calls on the Government to change its proposals to ensure real change for disabled children and their families. Finally, DCP will engage with the Covid Public Inquiry to ensure the experiences of disabled children and their families are not overlooked.

Who else was involved?

Over 100 DCP member organisations; a network of 10,000 campaigners; parent carers; children and young people; The Sun newspaper; and more than 90 Disabled Children’s Champions in the House of Commons.