Blog

This website is becoming more of a campaigning site for disabled children, disabled adults and their families.  If you want to contribute to the debate, please send me an e mail to rm@rosamonckton.com.

Over the last few months I have been lobbying politicians, writing articles and filming my third documentary, Letting Go, which was broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesday, 13th March at 10.35pm. Letting Go is about what happens when chronologically your child becomes an adult, but is still mentally a child.  It is about the lack of suitable provision, and how vulnerable adults are being put into Supported Living, on their own, with very few hours support a week.  

I have received over 1300 e mails from worried familes and many from elderly parents, who are confronting their own mortality, and are despertely concerned about the welfare of their children after they have died.

Intentional residential communities across the country are being closed, and places that have been home to people for many years are being shut down.  People with no mental capacity are being assumed to have made decisions that they are incapable of making.

The Mail on Sunday is backing my e campaign to ring fence money for people with learning disabilties, and to review how it is spent.  Please sign up.  We need 100,000 signatures to trigger a debate in Parliament.  Here is the link   http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31475

What makes the Government think the learning disabled have a 'right' to live in squalor, weigh 20 stone or have all their teeth removed? - March 2012

Last week, I wrote an article for this newspaper, immediately in advance of my BBC1 documentary Letting Go. When I logged on to my computer early on Sunday morning,  I was surprised to see that I had already received 20 emails from readers, and  by Tuesday morning, when I travelled to London to appear on Woman’s Hour to talk about the issue, I had received more than 300.

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'When will I be normal?': Heartbreaking question of Diana's Downs Syndrome goddaughter and her mother's fears of how she will cope alone - March 2012

Having been away for a few days, I walked into the house to be met by my 16-year-old daughter, Domenica, usually  so happy and bouncy.

‘Why am I a Down’s Syndrome?’ was her greeting. ‘Why can’t I do maths?’ Followed by the most heartbreaking question of all: ‘When will I be normal?’

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Gemma Hayter - 19 September 2011

The tragic case of Gemma Hayter, a victim of 'mate' crime, shows how much is wrong with our so called care of people with learning disabilities.

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Draft Green Paper on SEN - 27 June 2011

Observations on the shortcomings in the draft Green Paper, which in my view need addressing.

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