---

Children

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate on safeguarding all children and thank my noble friend Lord Listowel for instigating it. I must declare my interest in this subject, of course, as president of the Royal Mencap Society and also as the grandfather of a little lad aged four with Down’s syndrome. Although I also welcome the joint inspectors’ recognition of the particular vulnerability of disabled children, we should feel tremendous shame at their statement that these children,"““are much more likely to suffer abuse and neglect than other children””." Shame, but not surprise. We already know from research that disabled children are at least three times more likely to be abused or neglected than other children, and through its network of staff and its phone helpline, Mencap is aware of a significant number of cases where inadequate safeguards have exposed children with a learning disability to unacceptable levels of risk. An example of this is a young woman with a learning disability who was assaulted on more than one occasion at school. Her mother said, ““She couldn’t tell us she had been hit and others wouldn’t believe her anyway, so the perpetrator got away with it. Nothing has happened and as far as I know whoever did it still works there””. Research and practice tell us that there are a number of reasons why disabled children are more vulnerable to such abuse and neglect. Some of these reasons are based on the lack of value we, as a society, place on disabled children, for we fail to will the resources and policies which could support the staff and families in their vitally important caring roles. I endorse wholeheartedly the recommendation of the joint inspectors which would ensure that all staff working with disabled children should be trained and supported to recognise immediately the signs of abuse or neglect and then know precisely what their next steps should be. But before that can happen, all staff who are in contact with children with a learning disability need further training so they can communicate effectively with these children, especially those who do not use speech when they communicate. In addition, all services, whether they are mainstream or specialist, must update their systems to reflect the vulnerability of these children rather than expect the children to fit the system. Furthermore, as part of the forthcoming Working Together guidance, I would want to see the new local safeguarding children boards review local systems, procedures and training to ensure that disabled children are adequately safeguarded. The importance of such a review is underlined by the joint inspectors’revelation that four out of 10 residential schools are failing to meet the national minimum standard for child protection systems and procedures. We already know that disabled children are more likely than other children to be living away from home, and often such a long way from home that it is extremely difficult for parents to monitor the quality of the care that their son or daughter is receiving at a residential school or home. Distance in this case does not lend enchantment but often extreme anxiety and misery. But there is a further issue. What about the vulnerability of the nine out of 10 children with a learning disability who are not living away from home but are cared for at home by their own family? For this much larger group of children, a major issue is family stress. Families have to cope with consistently high levels of responsibility over long periods and often for a lifetime. Our society does not provide these 24 hours a day, seven days a week, lifetime carers a level of family support which would protect family relationships. In its most extreme form, this lack of support has tragically resulted in cases of parents actually killing their children because they could no longer cope. In 1999, Mrs Turnbull killed her two profoundly disabled sons because she feared they would be taken away from the family home and placed in residential care. She said, ““The truth is I could not take any more and I knew they could not cope without me””. The independent review reported:"““Although staff had individually identified that the Turnbull family were under pressure and stressed, the cumulative effect of caring for two profoundly disabled sons over 20 years, more recently in unsuitable accommodation, was (in our view) not fully acknowledged””." Mencap’s Breaking Point report highlighted the fact that families with a severely disabled child were receiving on average less than two hours’ support per week. When we neglect these families and fail to provide them with the right level of support, it all too often results in family break-up and even abuse and neglect. These unfortunate children are then additionally disadvantaged and made still more vulnerable. It is a simply dreadful situation. I look to hearing the Government’s response to the joint inspectors’ report and to the concerns raised in this debate. I hope, and indeed expect, that this response will herald the actions which the Government intend to take to ensure the very necessary improvements to safeguard disabled children. To leave the second joint chief inspectors’ review mouldering on a mountain of ignored Whitehall paper would be a national disgrace.