One of my favourite parts of this job is to visit and meet with our many charities and voluntary organisations in Grantham. However, I have been reliant on video conferencing and even the old-fashioned telephone to check in with some of our local organisations recently.
One of my recent meetings has been with the fantastic Grantham Disabled Children’s Society (GDCS) and one of its trustees, Darryl Blair. Darryl is one of the parent volunteers who in non-crisis times, runs a series of activities for disabled children and their families in our town.
While the charity is focused on providing wonderful activities and days out, they also have a broader aim to raise awareness of the problems and issues, including isolation, faced by families who have a child with a disability. While we have all become used to the feeling of isolation recently, for many of us this is a temporary issue caused by the pandemic. However, for parents and siblings of disabled children this can be an ongoing issue which GDCS seeks to address.
This crisis has been hard enough for most of us as it is, but for those with disabled or critically ill children at home it must have been especially hard to look after and help educate them. I am pleased to see last month that new funding for low-income families with seriously ill or disabled children was announced - they have unique challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic and so it is right that new grants for things like household services, educational or sensory equipment is provided.
However, after speaking with the GDCS, I do feel that we need to do more to raise awareness of disabilities and look at how basic public facilities are provided. In particular, it is important for us all to realise that not all disabilities are visible and one specific area that this can be problematic is with accessible public toilet facilities. Many of these facilities provide space and some equipment for those in wheelchairs for example, but not all disabilities are accounted for.
This means that those who have hidden disabilities but need to use accessible toilets can be subjected to discrimination and so inspired by Darryl, I will today be raising this issue with the national government thorough a formal written question.
There are currently 14 million people in our country with a disability, 8% of all children are disabled, and yet their needs are not often discussed. I aim to change that.
