Care for disabled preschoolers slipping

WELLINGTON: Preschoolers with disabilities or development problems are waiting more than 100 days to get extra help, despite the Government’s commitment to cut waiting times for support a year ago.

The waiting list for early intervention has grown in the past year, against projections that it would be halved by funding increases for the sector.

That means more children with communications difficulties, development delays, or disabilities are waiting longer for specialist support which helps them learn and participate at home or in early childhood education.

The issue was singled out by the Government for attention in

last year’s Budget, but Associate Education Minister Tracey Martin admitted not enough had been done.

‘‘We put in $21.5 million last year. It just hasn’t worked.

‘‘It hasn’t been enough. We need system change as well as more money.’’

When that fouryear funding boost was announced in May, the average wait for an appointment was 74 days.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at the time: ‘‘In the life of a 3 or 4year old child who’s hungry to learn, that’s 74 days too long.’’

The average waiting time is now 106 days, and in Wellington it is 178 days. That reverses a general trend of falling wait lists over the past five years.

Ms Martin said at the Budget that the funding boost would halve the waiting list. But the list has actually risen to 2637 children, up from 2552 in the middle of last year.

Altogether Autism national manager Catherine Trezona said that while the Government was promising some important changes, the Budget funding had made no perceptible difference to children and families needing help.

‘‘I am not surprised the wait times have gone up,’’ she said.

‘‘As soon as you realise you have a child with a difference you get used to wait times.

‘‘You wait for diagnosis, you wait for services, you wait to be seen for everything. This is unfortunately very much part of the landscape.’’

She said delayed support meant some children were stood down at early childhood centres because they could not be handled by staff. It also meant families were placed under unnecessary stress because their child’s development problems were not being addressed.

At the heart of the issue was a lack of trained staff and quality, specialist support, she said.

Ms Martin agreed, but warned that there were multiple pressures which would take some time to address.

Demand for behavioural services had risen by 21% since 2013, and demand for early intervention had jumped by 15% since 2013. At the same time, these increases had been matched by an expanded workforce.

‘‘Realistically we don’t have enough of these professionals,’’ the minister said.

‘‘It takes three years to train a psychologist, five years to train a speech language therapist. We can’t just import all these people.’’

There were major changes in the pipeline, including 600 more learning support coordinators from next year and a new delivery model which would be rolled out in most parts of the country by the end of the year.

National Party early childhood education spokeswoman Nicola Willis said the children in the waiting list were among New Zealand’s most needy and they deserved better.

Ms Martin said fixing the problem had a personal significance.

‘‘As the mother of a son who needed speech language therapy, who couldn’t access it for 12 months (in 2005), I can appreciate what it’s like for the parent of the children.’’ — NZME