Cause and Effect
This week: the SEND Day of Action, a parent-led rally at Westminster to Fight For Ordinary
On Monday, we were boots on the ground as parents, campaigners and charities from all over the UK descended on Westminster as part of a SEND Day of Action - calling on the Government to deliver reforms that will genuinely support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.
Mid-morning and under blue September skies, Parliament Square began to fill with hundreds of families, banners and placards held high, as part of the Fight For Ordinary rally, which would be followed by an MP drop in event in the Houses of Parliament.
Parents and campaigners gather for the rally
The message was clear - families just want the ordinary things for their children, the chance to learn in a safe environment, health appointments that don’t take longer than adult waiting lists, and support at home to help with the exhausting unpaid job of being a carer, and the chance for mums and dads to work.
The rally was attended by at least 800 campaigners, each representing thousands more who couldn’t make it because of caring duties. It was organised by parent groups Let Us Learn Too and The SEND Sanctuary UK, with backing from our client, the Disabled Children’s Partnership, We were there to liaise with the media contacts that we’d been speaking to in the weeks leading up to the rally and support those wonderful families that had agreed to share their stories. We later got to take many of them into Parliament to meet MPs and new education minister Georgia Gould.
Over the years, Cause has led the way in telling the stories that lay bare the scale of the current SEND crisis and we are privileged that a wide number of families, parents and young people trust us to share their experiences and struggles.
It’s important to note that media appetite for issues around SEND has been strong (let’s be clear - there are 1.7 million children in the UK living with special educational needs and disabilities who deserve better) and we were proud to deliver hard-hitting coverage across national print, online and broadcast media from the morning of the rally and across the remainder of the week.
First up was parent carer Hayley Harding speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rachel Burden about the fight to get her autistic son a place in school and why EHCPs are a lifeline to so many families. Chris Warburton from Radio 5 Live’s Drive Time spoke to Jenny about her son George and how a broken system means she is unable to get the provision her child so badly needs.
The DCP’s own Jane Harris appeared on Sky News whilst mother-and-daughter duo, Ruth and 18-year-old Katie Nellist spoke to Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and before that to BBC Radio Oxford, to explain how the absence of appropriate SEND provision has seen Katie receive absolutely no formal education for the last six years.
Katie Nellist is interviewed on Radio 4 Woman’s Hour before the rally
L-R is Hayley Harding, Let Us Learn Too founder and SEND campaigner, Katie Nellist, SEND campaigner and Sam Carlisle, Cause founder
Further packages ran on ITV News along with print and online coverage in The Guardian, the i newspaper, Sky News before the BBC’s Kate McGough included the story of Tracey Winchester and her son Rowan - who has had an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) since he was five - in her piece about the Education Select Commission’s report on educational reform.
Colourful images of the rally also ran in print editions of the Daily Mirror, The Sun and The Guardian along with a raft of regional coverage including the Yorkshire Post and Shropshire Star, proof, if needed, that SEND families up and down the country are all deeply concerned for their children’s futures.
Special mention has to go to our very own mini Cause campaigner - Bethan, aged 8 - who proudly appeared in many of the day’s photographs thanks to her own homemade banner that had been safely transported to London from Bolton the night before, and was emblazoned with the message “Everyone deserves the chance to fly”.
Bethan, aged 8, attends the SEND rally with her Wicked inspired banner
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, and as we anticipate the Government’s education white paper that will include SEND Reform, due out this Autumn, we really do hope that they’ve been listening.