A short break should be just as much for the benefit of a disabled person as their family

Author: Laurence Clark

Traditionally short breaks or 'respite' services were intended to give family members time out from supporting a disabled person. Disabled people living independently, through either receiving services or managing their own budget, were generally not thought to require a break.

However this idea of people needing 'respite' from their loved ones doesn't always fit with individual's circumstances. For example, since both my wife and I are disabled people, at one time our local social services would have happily supported both of us to take separate breaks and get 'respite' from each other; but wouldn't have supported us to go away together as a family!

So terms such as 'respite' can be unhelpful. The implication is the disabled family member is a burden that the rest of their family need some time away from. It would therefore follow from this notion that a disabled person who managed their own support would have no need of 'respite'.

This is why, in recent years, the alternative name 'short breaks' has been commonly used more and more instead. After all, everyone should be entitled to a break from their normal day-to-day routine every now or then. A short break should be just as much for the benefit of a disabled person as their family. This means that, rather than just getting shipped off to a respite home every few months, they should have choice and control over where they go, who they go with and what they do when they get there.

In addition, for people like me who have specific access requirements, taking a break can be both costly and time consuming. A couple of years ago I compared the costs of two identical holidays: one from a high street travel agent and one from a specialist accessible travel agent. I discovered that booking with the specialist provider cost over �500 more to go away on the exact same dates to the exact same hotel. The only discernible difference between the two deals was that the specialist travel agent was able to guarantee me an accessible room with a wheel-in shower, whereas the other travel agent told me I would just have to take pot luck!

Therefore with the advent of individual budgets, more and more people are choosing to use their shorts breaks funding on more imaginative alternatives to traditional respite homes in order to have an accessible holiday. I know of two disabled people who recently chose to take their short breaks funding from their local authority as a direct payment and use it to go on holiday, in these particular cases to Florida and Gran Canaria. I myself have recently booked a family holiday to South Africa and plan to use our short breaks money to pay for the cost of a personal assistant to support us to travel around the country.

Despite these fundamental changes, it must be recognised that there will be some disabled people and families who will wish to continue using traditional respite services. However there are many more who have found these services do not meet their needs and, when given their own direct payment for a short break, will probably choose very different options.