On Monday, four members of the House of Lords met with families at the Sense Family Centre in Barnet, which supports children
with sight and hearing loss, to learn about their experiences. The peers are members of the Children and Families Act 2014 Committee, a Select Committee appointed to evaluate a landmark piece of legislation which significantly impacted the care and educational
many children receive.
Families supported by Sense spoke with the peers, including the Chair of the committee Baroness Tyler of Enfield and Baroness Doreen Lawrence,
about their experiences accessing suitable education and care for their disabled children.
Parents stressed that although the 2014 Act aimed to join up education, health and social care, in their experience parents are still expected to do the large amount of work of coordinating between many different professionals. In one example, a parent of a child with additional needs was expected to coordinate with 36 different professionals.
Parents shared that they struggled to access information about what support their children were entitled to, and often felt that getting their children the support they needed was a draining and time-consuming process.
The members of the House of Lords also met with staff at the Sense Family Centre and toured the facilities, which include a state-of-the-art sensory room, specially adapted music and art rooms, a sensory toy library and a height adjustable kitchen. The Centre hosts groups where disabled children and their families can come to enjoy sensory activities, as well as supporting families to navigate the education, health and social care systems.
One woman who shared her experiences with the peers was Rebecca Bryant from Finchley, whose daughter Scheherazade, 2, is supported by Sense.
Rebecca Bryant said:
“I’m glad I had the opportunity to tell my story to members of the House of Lords, and I hope this might lead to changes which will benefit
Scheherazade in her lifetime.
“Parents of disabled children could do with a lot more support. We’re expected to do a huge amount of administrative work and the impact of this on the wider family is almost never considered.”
The Baroness Tyler of Enfield, Chair of the Select Committee on the Children and Families Act 2014 said:
“We were very pleased to visit Sense’s family centre in Barnet and speak directly to families about their experiences of support for children
with special needs and disabilities. These conversations are so important to our work and allow us to hear from a diverse range of perspectives.”
Melissa Cradock, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at Sense, said:
“It was a pleasure meeting the members of the House of Lords and showing them the work we do at the Sense Family Centre in Barnet to support
children with multiple sensory impairments, as well as introducing them to some of the families we support.
“I hope we will see changes which ensure that all children can access the right support to communicate and flourish.”
Other peers in attendance were Baroness Bertin and Baroness Wyld.
