This column has become rather sporadic. I’m sorry and I promise to try to do better from now on!

No excuse, I know, but we have been dealing with a lot of family issues. Ageing parents causing concern. M, with his own  problems, who is psychologically up and down like a yoyo, so much so that I can’t keep up.

Then, of course, there was the summer holiday to contend with. Five weeks of it. Thank goodness for holiday playschemes. These are a must for children with special needs, they add some structure to the days and weeks and provide families with a little much needed respite.

Unfortunately many children with special needs cannot attend schemes designed for mainstream children for a variety of reasons…problems of physical access, schemes being too busy and noisy, lack of 1:1 support etc. There are specialist playschemes for children with special needs but they don’t come top of funding priorities, because intensive support is very expensive. There are just not enough holiday schemes or enough spaces on the ones that do exist.

I have been lucky this year, as we had at least two days a week on playschemes. Enough to keep S happy and me relatively sane. But he is a teenager now, albeit a very small one. Next year he will be too old for these schemes, yet he will never be able to go out independently as a normal teenager would. I don’t know what we will do in the summer, or indeed other school holidays.

I’d better start campaigning now…as soon as he goes back to school, that is!