Children with SEND
Households where there are disabled parents or children that are disabled are at greater risk of poverty. In part this is due to the additional costs of being disabled - in 2024/25, disabled households need on average, an additional £1,095 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households. (Scope, 2025). In the UK in 2023/4, children living in a family someone was disabled had a poverty rate of 33 per cent after housing costs, compared with 29 per cent for children living in families where no one is disabled. (House of Commons Library, 2025).
The support system for children with SEND is overwhelmed and in crisis, leaving many families facing years long waits for diagnosis and support. For families living on low incomes these issues are compounded as they struggle to meet the additional costs of having a disabled child; face the ongoing fear of threatened cuts to disability benefits and are often unable to find and stay in a decent job as they cannot find accessible and affordable childcare. All this takes a huge toll on families’ mental health.
In London many children with SEND are also from migrant backgrounds, and their families often require additional support to navigate the SEND system and understand their entitlements. This, of course, depends on effective collaboration between local authority teams and schools.
Calls to Action
We support the Disabled Children’s Partnership’s call for legally guaranteed support for every child who needs it and EHCPs for all children whose needs cannot be or are not met by individual schools’ plans. It is essential that the reformed system proposed by the Government in its SEND White Paper is able to guarantee that every child with SEND gets support at the earliest opportunity and that there is enough money in the system, and the right funding incentives, to allow for this guarantee to be met.
Local authorities should support better collaboration the across the heath, social care, childcare and education sectors to provide support for children with SEND, particularly for those in non-specialist schools and those from migrant families.
The Greater London Authority should consider whether it can offer free or subsidised travel for families with children with SEND, in particular for those living in temporary accommodation who have been housed significant distances away from their children’s schools and GPs.
ESDEG
ESDEG’s SEND project supports children with special educational needs and disabilities in the local community in Ealing, by providing extra educational opportunities; peer support for parents; and information and advice to help navigate the diagnosis and assessment process.
