A collection of stories about the lives of families with a disabled child has sold nearly 1,500 copies and now the group behind the publication, Parents With Attitude, is planning a second collection. The first collection, Let Our Children Be, includes stories from disabled children, their siblings and parents describing many strands of their lives. The description on the back cover reads: ‘Our disabled children are often denied human rights. We want them all to belong in their local communities and to have ordinary lives. Our disabled children are teaching us how to be their allies.’ Pippa Murray, one of the parents involved, said she hoped publishing the stories would make a contribution to building a society that treated disabled people as equal citizens.
Disability Now, February 1998.

Val Lightowler, the mother of a four-year-old Down’s Syndrome boy, has accused Bradford education chiefs of playing games with her son’s future. It is Bradford Council’s policy to integrate special needs children into mainstream schools wherever possible but the school offered to Joshua Lightowler has refused to take him, claiming the authority has not given it enough money to fully support him. The school was then ordered by the LEA to take Joshua but his mother refused to go along with it. According to Mrs. Lightowler: ‘I was not feeling very confident that Joshua was really going to get the support he needed. Joshua should be able to go into school like any other child and it should be automatic that he gets the support he needs’.
Bradford Telegraph and Argus, February 6, 1998.

A second comprehensive school in Nottingham is set for a cash injection as councillors seek to wipe out no-go areas for wheelchairs. Ellis Guilford Comprehensive is already set to spend £112,000 to provide disabled access, and now Nottingham City Councillors are due to approve a further funding boost to another secondary school to allow disabled pupils to attend. At present no secondary schools in Nottingham are accessible to disabled pupils and only 11 other schools are wheelchair friendly.
Nottingham Evening Post, February 19, 1998.

Writing in The Times newspaper, Estelle Morris, Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Employment, has given an assurance that the government is not planning to close all special schools. She says: ‘While we certainly want to offer parents greater opportunities to place their children in mainstream schools we are not planning to close all special schools. Indeed we believe that many special schools can work more closely with mainstream schools and some can become centres of excellence’.
The Times, February 23, 1998.