We’ve been very quiet for a very long time on our little blog. It’s great to be so busy, but it’s also important to have time to write so we can keep on sharing important information.
One of the things that I miss the most when things are so busy is having time to write and reflect.
Today for the first time in months, I had the opportunity to sit down and prepare for a staff training day and intern induction. One of the things I hate in any training that I run is ‘death by PowerPoint’ so I was scrolling through the many, many videos we have made a @blueskyautism over the past 14yrs. Graduation videos, birthday videos, information videos and videos for campaigns and funding.
It was when I was looking through these videos that I was hit with a stark reality.
In one of our campaigns in 2014 it talks about the fact there is no funding, policies or government funded evidence based early intervention services in the UK for young children with autism.
The stark reality I was hit with: absolutely nothing has changed. In ten years. An entire decade.
It’s just not good enough.
Our 2014 campaign was called ‘Don’t Right Me Off’ and featured a number of our nursery and social group children dressed up photoshopped into their dream job. From princesses to builders to superhero’s to scientists, every single one of those children then and now have the RIGHT to services and an education that will ensure that they reach their fullest potential and are offered all the opportunities that all children are entitled to. These services and educational opportunities should not be dependent on a budget.
Too often children who have diagnoses are categorised as having ‘needs’. These needs are assessed and then written into official documents such as EHCPs. Needs are then ‘met’ with provision…but far too often the ‘provision’ that is provided goes nowhere near offering the opportunities that these children deserve. Far too often these documents and the people who write them focus their entire energy on trying to work out ways to save money, cut budgets and provide the bare minimum simply to tick a box. Needs are pretty subjective and you can get away with claiming that you are meeting them without very much scrutiny.
However, if we start to frame our thinking a little differently and start talking about ‘educational rights’ not ‘educational needs’, things become objective by their very nature, and there is really no way we can make excuses around budgets or financial constraints.
The children that we support in the UK (and across the world) have the RIGHT to the right kind of education, support and intervention. They have the RIGHT to access therapies that have decades of science and research behind them and the RIGHT to all the tools possible to help them find their voice.
In the UN Convention on the Rights of the child it states:
Article 29
1. States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to:
(a) The development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential;
In short a child’s fundamental rights include an education that enables children to fulfil their potential.
10 years on we are seeing the same battles being fought by parents who should not have to fight for their children’s fundamental human rights. We are seeing the same bureaucratic machines try and wriggle their way out of providing meaningful and appropriate educational opportunities by framing these as ‘needs’ which can be ‘met’ on paper through long drawn out processes that waste the very budgets they claim they don’t have.
Don’t Right Me Off was our campaign message in 2014 and we believed back then that we could help change a broken system by trying to reframe the narrative. Fast forward to 2024 and the system is still broken, the narrative remains stuck and children are still being refused access to the things that can change their lives.
It’s not good enough, but trying to change the big picture can only really be done in small steps. 10 years seems like a long time and it seems like enough time. But we forget in all the big craziness of broken systems that it’s actually the little things that mean the most.
For 14 years we have been the light in the darkness for many, many families and we will continue to do so. We will continue to force small changes in the words that people in positions of ‘power’ use and push them to reframe their thinking through the lens of ‘RIGHTS’ not needs.
It’s not enough, but it is a start…so watch this space! We are coming out of our little hibernation ready to fight again!
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
