Member's statement: Children with Additional Needs
Member's statement by Mrs Linda Dillon on .
- MLA
- Mrs Linda Dillon
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 22 April 2024
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Children with Additional Needs
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4484003
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I speak today about the challenges that face parents of children with additional needs. On Friday, Michelle O'Neill and I met two highly skilled and experienced nurses, one of whom is a specialist transplant nurse, who are struggling to stay in the workplace because they do not have childcare for their children with additional needs. That is unacceptable. We need to see work between Health and Education to ensure that we have a childcare strategy, with a particular focus on children with additional needs. We have said that that is a priority for the Executive, and we need to ensure that the focus is on that. We urgently need to see more support for parents of children and young people with additional needs. There is a lack of childcare provision, appropriate school places and support mechanisms. We know that some of our social work teams are operating at 50% capacity. Those are the people who are in place to support those families. They are mothers, fathers, parents and caregivers who want to go out to work and provide for their families, but they are being prevented from doing so because there is not adequate childcare provision, particularly for children with additional needs.
It is an unacceptable situation, and we need to ensure that it is addressed as a matter of urgency. Those families have to fight for everything that they get for their children and young people and for the most basic of rights for them. We need to support them to ensure that that does not remain the case.
260 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Awaiting analysis
This record has not been analysed yet. It is not counted in any total until it has been assessed.
Disagree with this assessment?
Classifications can be challenged. A person reviews every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.