A new guide, Childcare for families with disabled children, launched today by legal experts Irwin Mitchell and charities Contact a Family, Every Disabled Child Matters and the Family and Childcare Trust will help parents with disabled children seek redress if the childcare system fails them. It forms part of the charities’ new campaign Levelling the Playing Field, calling for equal access to childcare for disabled children.
The guide, Childcare for families with disabled children, helps you access free childcare for your two, three and four year old, making it easier for parents with disabled children to understand their rights around the government’s free early education offer and help them challenge decisions made by local authorities and childcare providers that results in their child being denied access to free childcare.
Its publication follows recent government proposals to extend its free early years’ education offer to working parents and is published one year after an independent Parliamentary Inquiry concluded that families with disabled children are being failed by childcare at every step.
The coalition of charities is also appealing to families with disabled children under five years old to take part in a short survey about their access to the free early education offer. The findings will be used to build up a national picture of the barriers faced by these families.