The Special Needs Action Group says it is "severely concerned about the lack of support and reasonable adjustments" available to children with special needs and disabilities in private nursery facilities in Gibraltar. 

A statement from SNAG follows below:

The Special Needs Action Group is severely concerned about the lack of support and reasonable adjustments available to children with special needs and disabilities in private nursery facilities, which at times can lead to very worrying safeguarding concerns. In particular, SNAG highlights the fact that many children with special needs and disabilities require a closer staff to child ratio to ensure both access to the opportunities within the facilities and adequate safeguarding. SNAG emphasises the fact that many of these children display a variety of social, medical, communication and behavioural issues which must be managed and supervised closely with appropriate staffing ratios to ensure their inclusion, safety and well being. 

SNAG highlights that at present there is only one nursery which offers Special Needs Education, Provision and Support locally, namely Early Birds Nursery which is a part of St Martins School. Children are not eligible to attend this setting until the age of 2-3, and on referral from the GHA professionals. Children are only allocated a two hour daily placement for their first year, which increases to a 3 hour placement in the following year. There is nothing by way of Special Needs Education or Provision nursery for these children before they reach this age, or outside of these limited hours, until they reach the age of four. 

SNAG must emphasise the success of a dedicated early intervention nursery placement such as the one offered in Early Birds, who has an exemplary record of maximising the learning opportunities of these children with qualified teachers and professionals within a specialised setting. What SNAG and parents can not accept, however, is that these children do not legally become a matter for the state until they reach educational age, and therefore, anything offered before this point is discretionary. Offering suitable designated specialised paying alternatives to properly cater for the needs of these children seems to therefore be a matter which no Government Department wishes to take responsibility for. 

In the case of most of the these children, their disabilities or additional needs are something that they have been born with and have been diagnosed with at birth, early on or are displaying with very early on. If the Government is not going cater for their needs in a specialised setting for longer periods throughout the day, it must ensure that the only alternatives available (even if they are paying ones) are suitable for children with special needs and disabilities. It is paramount that these suitable alternatives are available to families who must continue to meet their working and financial obligations.  

SNAG does not intend to put the onus on private establishments who trying their best to manage with the demands of an increasing population of children with disabilities and special needs, but find that they have no practical or financial support from the Government in doing so. By and large, SNAG has found private nurseries to practice a policy of inclusion and high levels of safeguarding, but face amounting pressure to cope with an every increasing population of children with special needs with no financial/practical support in their efforts to do so. 

We urge the Government and relevant departments to consider a policy of inclusion and support with private nurseries in this regard so that ALL children can access these facilities safely and on an equal basis with their peers. 

SNAG calls on the recent press release issued by the Government and Minister Sacramento’s  comments in which she highlights the importance of safeguarding and child protection. SNAG hopes that the new Child Protection Committee will identify this as a safeguarding issue which it needs to tackle and address with urgency. 

To our dismay, SNAG has found that despite cases in which professionals have identified the evident safeguarding issues due to the lack of appropriate special needs support and provision in these facilities, no Government Department is willing to take this issue on and address it once and for all. 

SNAG strenuously highlights the urgency of this issue and the need to address the clear gap in provision to avoid the stress, strain and pressure that nurseries, parents and most importantly children are put under as a result of a failure which we unfortunately see replicated across the area of disability provision in general, this being, lack of practical support, resources and funding. 

SNAG will continue to raise these concerns and highlight the many issues that are affecting both children and adults with special needs, and the families who support them. In the interim period, SNAG has invested heavily in providing additional therapy programmes, support for siblings, workshops for families and support for caregivers as we firmly believe that these persons and families can not be realistically expected to wait until a National Strategy is eventually implemented to tackle issues that can be remedied sooner, and that have been on going for years.