"... So­cial pro­grams and poli­cies are usu­al­ly de­signed to solve so­cial prob­lems; some­times the so­cial pro­gram cre­ates so­cial prob­lems of its own" (Cham­bers, 2000, p 10). This state­ment is ref­er­enced in di­rect re­la­tion to pro­grammes sup­pos­ed­ly de­signed to tar­get chil­dren with spe­cial needs. First, it should be not­ed that chil­dren with spe­cial needs ex­tend be­yond chil­dren di­ag­nosed with cere­bral pal­sy, giv­en the fact that much at­ten­tion–and right­ly so–has been placed on this par­tic­u­lar pop­u­la­tion in re­cent times.

Chil­dren with spe­cial needs in­clude those di­ag­nosed with a range of cog­ni­tive, phys­i­cal and sen­so­ry dis­abil­i­ties in­clud­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, those with autism spec­trum dis­or­der, vi­su­al im­pair­ment, hear­ing im­pair­ment, deaf­ness, blind­ness, deaf-blind­ness, and mul­ti­ple dis­abil­i­ties.

Many chil­dren di­ag­nosed with these con­di­tions re­quire a list of in­ter­ven­tions which are cost­ly, rang­ing in price from $200 to $800 per ses­sion. In or­der for these in­ter­ven­tions to be ef­fec­tive, the child should be able to ac­cess it reg­u­lar­ly and at an ear­ly age; there is much ev­i­dence sup­port­ing the su­pe­ri­or ef­fec­tive­ness of ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion with this pop­u­la­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, chil­dren with phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties re­quire that ma­jor ad­just­ments be made to the lay­out of their homes as well as the pur­chase of adap­tive fur­ni­ture and mo­bil­i­ty de­vices most of which are not avail­able lo­cal­ly and are ex­treme­ly cost­ly.

It is quite in­ter­est­ing that the grant avail­able to spe­cial chil­dren through the So­cial Wel­fare Di­vi­sion is a grant based on "need" and there­fore par­ents who have chil­dren di­ag­nosed with life­long, se­vere­ly dis­abling con­di­tions are put through an an­nu­al gru­elling in­ter­view that delves in­to the fi­nances of these par­ents in an ef­fort for the rel­e­vant boards to de­ter­mine el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for this grant.

In es­tab­lish­ing their el­i­gi­bil­i­ty, par­ents are guid­ed to per­pet­u­ate a dis­em­pow­er­ing dis­course around the lived ex­pe­ri­ences of pro­vid­ing care for their chil­dren.

The World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion's Re­port on Dis­abil­i­ty 2011 be­moans the fact that peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties face on­go­ing chal­lenges of in­ac­ces­si­ble trans­porta­tion, in­ad­e­quate re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and health ser­vices, low­er aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and few­er ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties. In T&T, a child di­ag­nosed with se­vere phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive dis­abil­i­ties have lim­it­ed op­tions of free school­ing avail­able.

In­stead, par­ents are faced with seek­ing pri­vate school­ing for these chil­dren at costs be­tween $5,000 and $15,000 per term, even when these chil­dren fall with­in the ages of six and 12, the manda­to­ry school age as out­lined in our Ed­u­ca­tion Act.

Giv­en these re­al­i­ties then, what "need" are par­ents of these spe­cial chil­dren ex­pect­ed to prove to ac­cess $850 per month? I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to draw to the at­ten­tion of our pol­i­cy mak­ers the gross in­ad­e­qua­cies that ex­ist in en­sur­ing that all our na­tion's chil­dren are hap­py, per­form­ing ac­cord­ing to their fullest po­ten­tial and val­ued as con­trib­u­tors to our na­tion's lega­cy.

Mary Bastien

Par­ent/Ad­vo­cate for chil­dren

with spe­cial needs