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Special Educational Needs and Disability (Support) Bill

My view is that it is incredibly important that the local education authority works with social services to provide proper personalised support to those families. The point that I was about to make is that, in respect of children who have severe and complex needs, the local authority can often feel, "Well, they have got the statement and they are in the school. They are where they are. We have done that for them. Case closed." The authority may feel that everything is tickety-boo, but the child's needs do not stop after the eight hours of compulsory schooling; those needs carry on for the 18 hours when the child is at home and where their behaviour may be incredibly difficult. With the best will in the world, all the parenting classes in the world will not help a parent to deal with such a situation. That brings me on to the point I wish to make about respite care for these children, in respect of which we need to reach a redefinition. Respite care is in very short supply across the country, and I know that the Government are looking at how we can further help carers. In looking at the needs and the life patterns of parents who are dealing with children with these complex needs and complex diagnoses, we need to consider how we make provision to give parents a night or two off. Just one or two good nights' sleep can be a tonic and can help them face the future. That is a very important point, and I would like the Minister to think about how social services look at the care of these children. Another constituent who came to my surgery was dealing with a very violent child of 10 or 11. She had rung her social services to say that the child was kicking, biting and punching her, only to be told, "Until you hit him, we will not intervene." She thought, "Of course I am not going to hit him. He is my son. I love him, so I am not going to hit him. That is against everything I believe in." She had contacted social services because she was in the very early stages of what was going to be almost an abusive domestic violence relationship. We are only at the beginning of our understanding of domestic violence. I have met female constituents in their sixties who have been beaten up by their 30-year-old sons. Those sons did not start beating their mothers when they were 30—the pattern started earlier. I met a woman in a refuge whose son had observed violence being perpetrated against her. It had been sanctioned in the home as he grew up and he felt able to continue with it. My constituent's case was not domestic violence, of course, but she was suffering injury and asking for help. Social services need to be able support parents in that situation and work with them to deal with challenging behaviour of that sort.