Disabled daughter’s struggle for support
Parents want help at college
Frustrated parents are demanding more support for their children attending college, as one mum fears her daughter is being “neglected”.
Marianne Hamilton’s daughter Brogan has mosaic partial trisomy of chromosome 11q and therefore cannot read, write or tell the time.
Brogan, 19, has been attending life skills at Ayr College to help better her education but mum-of-four Marianne says “the system is letting her down.”
The 48-year-old said: “I feel as if my daughter is being denied the right to an education and deprived of the support she requires.
“I have picked her up on a few occasions where she has spilt her lunch down her and no-one is there to help her clean up.
“She also struggles with her monthly cycle, so her friends have been helping her when it’s that time because there’s been nobody helping her.
“And sometimes I’ve just had to keep her off.
“She left school in June 2017 with the help of the transition process and I was informed that support would be available during her days at college.
“The College were saying they don’t like support workers in class but we got told they’d be in the class.
“I did even offer to pay for support myself and they said ‘no it doesn’t work like that’.
“All us parents can chip in I’ve offered voluntary service when I’m not working but I was told that ‘wouldn’t be good for Brogan’.
“There’s 12 pupils in Brogan’s class with one lecturer and only one college student who gets one-toone - no support for my daughter Brogan or other kids in the class who some are struggling.
Concerned Marianne explains her pleas have turned into a “continuous year’s worth of meetings.”
Marianne added: “They keep saying to enroll her for August but I’m questioning why, because we don’t know anything about the support - so I’m not putting her through another year of misery.
“I got an email saying there was a meeting on June 21 but why another meeting? - Why not make a decision and organise something?
“A year of meetings is not getting the kids what they need.
“Every night Brogan’s getting upset thinking she’s not seeing her friends again but I can’t send her back if there’s no support.
“It’s hard - it just feels like a continuos fight for what she’s entitled to.
“I want other parents out there who are going through the transition period from school to college to get whatever is said at the transition meetings to be put in writing, as my daughter has been through a very emotional roller coaster thanks to the system letting her down.”
An Ayrshire College spokesman said: “We work closely with partner organisations to agree and plan appropriate support for people with additional support needs to ensure that they get the most out of their time at college.”