Dingley’s Promise welcomes the new Child Poverty Strategy, which recognises the urgent need to address the growing numbers of children across the country living in poverty. Families of children with SEND are amongst those most impacted by the ‘double disadvantage’ of higher living and care costs as a result of their child’s needs, as highlighted in recent research from The Sutton Trust linking poverty and SEND.
The strategy recognises that affordable childcare is critical for giving children the best start in life and reducing the impact of child poverty. However, the strategy does not address the fact that access for children with SEND to early years education is a key barrier to equal opportunity. The link between poverty and SEND is clear and therefore any policy aiming to reduce child poverty must also actively consider how to ensure children with SEND have full access to education, health and care services. Without addressing the needs of this group of children, closing the gap cannot become a reality and a large number of children will continue to be left behind.
We welcome the scrapping of the “two-child limit” on benefits (Universal Credit/child elements), which will provide much needed financial support to more families. The strategy also welcomes a number of areas for extended support such as breakfast clubs and holiday and wrap around care. We are however, very aware that unless correct measures of support are put into place to make these sessions fully inclusive, children with SEND often face limited access to these services due to an inability to meet needs effectively, leading to greater inequality.
The Strategy refers to strengthening “local services,” such as health, social care, housing and other support services, which would make a significant difference to families of children with SEND, who regularly have to repeat information within different formats. However greater integration between anti-poverty measures and local SEND services is needed for this to be impactful.
The document demonstrates the intention to remove ‘structural barriers to employment’, which may in some cases, where children are able to access entitlements, help families to work more. However, we know for many families the demands on family life, medical appointments and levels of care and support required in reality make working extremely difficult – something which is not fully recognise or addressed within the strategy.
We stand with our partners in committing to contribute to the Government’s upcoming childcare review and the Schools White Paper, to strengthen the equity in the system, by directly tackling the crisis in access to early education for children with SEND. This will build on what has been outlined in the Poverty Strategy and is critical for ensuring that we do not continue to uphold an inequitable system, in which children with SEND are already more likely to be living in poverty, and have less chance of accessing life-changing early education.