‘After-school clubs need transport’

Many disabled children are missing out on after-school activities
because councils are failing to provide them with transport home, a
leading disability campaigner warned last week.

Speaking at a conference on services for disabled children,
director of the Council for Disabled Children Philippa Russell said
that while councils had a duty to provide transport to take
disabled children to and from school to partake in national
curriculum activities, they were not required to provide transport
for after-school activities, forcing many children to miss
out.

Calling on the government to place such a duty on councils, Russell
said: “When local education authorities are drawing up their
transport plans and enter into contractual relationships I would
like them to be expected to have some flexibility built into the
service.”

She said that the issue would become an “increasing priority” as
government plans to create at least one extended school in every
local authority area by 2006 were followed through.

Russell also called on the government to commission a study looking
at the long-term outcomes of the investment in disabled
children.

She said that LEAs and social services that had supported a
disabled child should be able to find out about the child’s
achievements in future years to help them to identify what it was
that helped the child to do well.

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