British Stammering Association | Warning Over Speech Support Cuts
Front-line cuts are leaving parents of children with speech and language problems struggling to get assistance, England’s departing communication tsar has said.
Jean Gross said cuts to council and NHS services coincided with a huge increase in the number of children needing help.
Research suggested 28% of parents found it hard to find support, compared with just 18% two years earlier, she said.
Ministers say the new health bill will ensure GPs were better placed to help.
In her report concluding her two years in post, Mrs Gross said there was “an increased awareness of the centrality of good communication skills to children’s learning, well-being and life chances”.
And she acknowledged improvements in picking up speech and language difficulties, but she warned much of the progress made in recent years could be lost because of cuts.
She told the BBC News website: “It’s the double whammy effect. Speech and language therapy services are funded by both the health services and the local authority.
“But what many I’ve seen are experiencing is that both these organisations are having to make cuts of find savings.
“In some areas therapy services are finding that their funding from the local authority has completely gone, and, at the same time, the health services has asked them to make savings of 10 or 15%.”
“I’ve personally seen cuts of over 15% in 10 services I’ve visited. And there’s more to come – local authorities are having to make a second round of cuts from April.”
Many areas were also losing specialist advisory teachers on which parents and children depend, said Mrs Gross.
She named areas where whole teams of advisory teachers were being axed or cut in half.
In her report, she said: “Cornwall have halved the number of early years consultants, lost half their children’s centre teachers and ended their very successful Every Child a Talker programme.
“Manchester have lost all their qualified teachers attached to children’s centres. Kingston-Upon-Hull have drastically reduced the number of staff in early years services.”
And the cuts come as more and more children are being diagnosed with speech and language problems.
Mrs Gross said: “These cuts coincide with rising incidence of SLCN (Speech, language and communication needs),
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