Disabilities RSS feed for the Disabilities tag
found 32 stories.
News PR
Centro 19 Jan 11
Users of the region’s Ring and Ride service are being asked to help decide the best way of overcoming a shortfall in funding for the coming year.
West Midlands council tax payers have paid £12.1 million towards the cost of running Ring and Ride this year but for the financial year starting in April substantial savings of £900,000 are required.
The shortfall is a result of a possible seven per cent cut in grant due the financial pressures on the seven West Midlands district councils following cuts to their funding over the next three years, plus dramatic cost increases in items like fuel.
Bosses at West Midlands Special Needs Transport, the charity which provides the service, and transport authority Centro, which funds Ring and Ride on behalf of the district councils, are now appealing to users of the door-to-door transport service to help decide how to make those savings.
More than 30,000 users are being sent a questionnaire asking them to vote for one of two options:
+ Making an eight per cent reduction in the number of trips being run which could see the withdrawal of some services in the evenings and/or other times of the day.
+ Introducing charges in the form of either:
An annual membership fee of £36 – the equivalent of 69p a week or
A single trip fare of 60p (£1.20 for a return trip)
Centro’s chief executive Geoff Inskip, said…
Business
24 Dash 3 Dec 10
Adopting an innovative approach to a traditional sector is reaping dividends for Walsall-based Interface Signage, with turnover set to hit an eight-year high.
The company, which has used support from the Winning Opportunities in Walsall (WOW) programme, has launched a new range of specialist signs for care homes across the UK that feature instructions in Braille and tactile lettering with large illustrations to help guide blind residents and those suffering from dementia and learning difficulties…
Helen Draycott Advertiser 25 Nov 10
Adults across the borough who rely on council-run care services to help them maintain independence in their own homes are set to be consulted over a service charge shake-up.
Users of day and domiciliary care – where health or supportive care is offered in patients’ homes – will be briefed about the changes at a series of public meetings across the borough which launch in Leamore on Monday (November 29).
The proposed new policy is a benefit-based model for non-residential community-based services, meaning people’s specific disability-related benefits would be used to contribute towards payment…
News feature
BBC News 18 Nov 10
A national conference to tackle hate crime was under way in Birmingham today. The event, run by the Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit (BRAMU) heard first hand accounts from victims.
Five years after leaving Nigeria to escape homophobia and bulling, Aluya Ikhena found himself filling in a crime report after suffering abuse on a Walsall bus.
“These two guys followed me on to the bus and repeatedly shouted ‘he’s gay, he’s gay’ to everyone,” he said.
“It was really intimidating. It felt like an attempt to bring me down and make me feel less of a person”…
News
BBC News 17 Nov 10
The government will drop Labour’s proposed law requiring councils to tackle social deprivation, equalities minister Theresa May is to announce.
The “social-economic duty”, part of predecessor Harriet Harman’s Equalities Bill, had been opposed by the Tories.
News
Diane Parkes B'ham Mail 16 Oct 10
More than 20,000 children phone, email or instant message the charity ChildLine each year with concerns about bullying.
And ChildLine supervisor Michael Wassell says many of them can be frightened, isolated and uncertain of what they can do to stop the often-daily nightmare…
Comment
The Plastic Hippo 14 Sep 10
Any remaining shred of credibility regarding Ofsted as an impartial, independent and necessary regulatory body has finally been blown away by the chill winds of autumn. The latest words of wisdom to emerge from the inspectorate, laughingly described as “a wide ranging study”, suggests that a quarter of children with Special Educational Needs are not special at all, just the sufferers of poor teaching. You can guess what is coming next. Yup, massive cuts in school SEN budgets.
Ofsted, described by one teaching union as a bunch of “failed teachers and bureaucratic middle-managers”, have something of a track record of getting things hopelessly wrong. It described child protection at Haringey council as “good” even as the nations collective heart broke on hearing the full horror of the Baby Peter case. Ofsted were later caught trying to change the paperwork. Headteachers, governing bodies, teaching unions, MPs and parents have all criticised the dogmatic, bullying approach employed by the largest regulatory body in the country and its latest report finally exposes Ofsted for what it is. Rather than protecting the interests of children, it is a tool of black, government controlled, propaganda…
News
Advertiser 19 Aug 10
A campaigner fighting to improve Walsall has won her battle to get a mobility scooter at her local Sainsbury’s supermarket.
Joy Turner, aged 50, started her wide ranging campaign – Improve Walsall – after she became ill with ME…
Shooting
Vicky Farncombe B'ham Mail 25 May 10
A shooting star who is hoping to compete in the 2012 Paralympics may have to give up his dreams because of a funding dispute with the NHS.
Ryan Cockbill, aged 19, thought his life was over when he broke his neck in a freak swimming pool accident three years ago…
News
Express & Star 3 May 10
Pensioners in Walsall are being forced to fork out for home care or have their visits axed. A total of 4,800 elderly and disabled people in Walsall are having their care package reviewed as part of a shake-up – designed to save £10 million over the next three years.
Those receiving day care, home care, residential and nursing care will be affected. The overhaul will impose a ceiling on funding through a complex government-designed formula…