Maria Villa Vine shares this latest news on behalf of the Island Labour about the petition to stop the cuts to the Island’s Disabled Children Intervention Team. Ed
In the next couple of weeks the Isle of Wight council will be discussing yet more devastating cuts to public services.
Among those will be the proposal to cut the Manager of the Disabled Children’s Intervention Team (DCIT) and not to fill a vacant post.
SEND families at crisis point
Many families who have children with additional needs are already at crisis point and the staff at DCIT deliver an individualised, bespoke service developing strategies that enable positive outcomes for all, preventing children or young people spiraling into exclusions from school, going into care or prison, which all further drain our limited resources.
The importance of early intervention
Last year I met with Isle of Wight Conservative MP, Robert Seely and Island families with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) to discuss the gaps in support services.
We sat in a room with a mixture of Professionals, Parents and Individuals including Cllr Paul Brading, and listened to award-winning expert Yvonne Newbold deliver a stark warning that without early intervention, children and young people can find themselves in prison, acute unit or suicidal.
This can be prevented with a fully-funded service.
Milford: Decision will “build pressure on the other teams”
Joyce Milford who is part of Yvonne Newbold’s team stated,
“This is one of those ‘for the want of a nail’ decisions. The Council are penny pinching in a specialised area.
“It will not save money, it will simply build pressure on the other teams who do not have the understanding about important, timely professional interventions that support families hanging on by their fingernails. Stupid action, short-sighted & damaging.”
OFSTED: High quality, tailored and intensive support
The recent OFSTED report said of the DCIT service:
“A range of innovative and effective services is helping to meet increased demand which include high quality, tailored and intensive support to families that contribute to improved outcomes.”
Personal story
A statement from a SEND family;
“Without the support from the DCIT Team the strain on our family would have been unbearable.
“My mental health was suffering and the impact on X’s siblings was crushing at times. I am so grateful to them.”
Cuts lead to more costly intervention
Investing in an already effective service, rather than cutting it, makes long-term economic sense. Cuts to the DCIT team will result in the need for much more costly interventions in the long term.
If Bob wants the Isle of Wight to be a centre of Excellence for children with Autism they need to be invested in not left at the bottom of the pile.
The petition
Join us and ask the council to reconsider these funding cuts by signing a petition.
