The Special Needs Action Group says it is "severely dismayed" by the progress being made on issues which they have previously highlighted to Government.

A statement from SNAG follows below:

The Special Needs Action Group is severely dismayed to see the slow progress made on the fundamental issues which they have been highlighting, issues that are affecting the disability community and families in a significant way. Despite our continuous efforts, emails, meetings and public calls to bring immediate attention and much needed reform to these issues, we are saddened to see that on the ground, very little has changed by way of services and provision offered by the Government Departments. 

Therapy: Emails and accounts show how 1:1 therapy is still removed from children with justifications to the tune of “to continue 1:1 therapy for this child would be at the expense of another child on the waiting list”. These 1:1 therapy sessions are removed from children who cannot even speak, who cannot function independently and who often have severe impediments. The sole reason for this shortage of therapy is lack of therapists and the reluctance to employ therapy aids, a solution suggested by SNAG on numerous occasions and by the GHA therapists themselves. For those in Mainstream schooling, the issue of therapy is even more precarious, therapists simply do not reach these children despite the fact that they also need it. The issue is only magnified when these children get older where therapy is non-existent. SNAG was hopeful that this issue would be resolved when the government announced plans to set up a ‘Non Governmental Organisation’ similar to Asansull, in a View Point Programme in which SNAG participated in July of last year. In the programme the Chief Minister was disheartened to see that the residents of Gibraltar should not be going to Spain to receive services which they need and confirmed that the government understood the ‘immediacy of the issue’.  Asansull (Spanish NGO) has an early intervention centre, where parents pay a fee to access different kinds of therapy for their children/young adults. The new NGO announced recently, albeit a positive thing for Gibraltar, will be a community support centre and will not be similar to Asansull or provide the same therapy provisions, therefore not resolving the severe shortage of therapy provision in Gibraltar. Parents will still be forced to cross the frontier daily and endure the long queues back into Gibraltar in an effort to obtain the much needed therapeutic intervention their children/young adults need. 

Further Education: Young adults are still forced to leave St Martins school at the age of 16 with no prospect of further education. SNAG has been calling for the provision of a further education centre which caters for the SEN provision delivered by the education department from the age of 16 to 25 as seen in the UK but there has been no progress in this regard. We were hopeful that a new site would have by now been identified to give way for the provision of further SEN education past the age of 16. We remind the Government that this is an entire generation of local children who have and are currently been failed by a system who offers them very little by way of tertiary opportunities, education and training.  

Resource Centre: SNAG has highlighted the need for the division of the St Bernadette’s Centre into a more age-appropriate facility which allows for the division of the users of the centre in a more appropriate way. The Centre is no longer fit for purpose and we are aware that as the number of users has grown the Care Agency often finds themselves struggling to manage with little space to provide the services that they are required to provide. In the same way that the old St Martins school had outgrown its purpose, St Bernadette’s Centre is following suit and a new site for the Centre is long overdue. We urge the Government to be proactive in its approach to this. 

Respite: The provision of respite and overnight respite is also appalling. SNAG has several accounts which detail the way in which ‘the Care Agency subcontract workers from care companies that are therefore not fully trained, experienced, nor have good working conditions or appropriate salary to work with our children’. The result of this is that some families are left without much needed respite. It also means that those families that do have respite are often leaving their children with carers who are not trained to the standard that they should be. Further accounts clearly document how the staff subcontracted by the care agency ‘are NOT trained in children with disabilities and are used to provide BASIC care and supervision responsibilities’. We must ensure that the carers we entrust our most vulnerable with are trained to the highest levels and treated accordingly. We must also ensure that we have an appropriate centre for our children and young adults to go to during their respite hours so that they do not have to constantly rely on good weather for outdoor activities or the charity of NGO’s for the funding of after school clubs to fill in the respite hours meant to be provided by the care agency. 

In terms of overnight respite, the care agency do not have a facility to provide this service. Those below the age of 18 cannot access overnight respite in Dr Giraldi home (who have extremely limited overnight facilities available in any event) and parents are often asked to vacate their own residence with their other children in order to get a night’s rest, defeating the purpose altogether. Respite, and the importance of respite for families is documented all over the world, it is about time Gibraltar was able to start getting this right. 

We remind the Government that these issues need addressing and cannot be tackled by hardworking NGOs, they need to be addressed by the Government and respective departments. Departments are exhausted and trying to do the best that they can with the limited resources that they have at their disposal whilst children, young adults and their families suffer the consequences of maladministration, lack of funding and resources. These issues need a completely new approach and re-investment and a vision that involves thinking towards the future to ensure that we do not fail yet another generation of children. We urge the Government to take head of these mounting concerns and adopt effective solutions in their vision for a better Gibraltar for these children and young people, which should be delivered by way of services and provisions, and not the continued reliance on charities and NGOs.