Emma - one of the 'very special children of 2002'. Please tell us your family story.

Emma's mum and dad said I can put their story on the website to encourage other families to write.

Peter Limbrick is collecting stories of children born in England in the same year as the prime minister's disabled son, Ivan. To see why I am doing this please click here. 

Emma was born in June 2002. Confirmation of her condition came a week after she was born: translocation Down Syndrome was her diagnosis.

Daddy is originally from the Caribbean and his initial thoughts were that she would be taken and placed into an institution. However, he was amazed and thrilled that this was not to be the case.

Emma has none of the health issues usually associated with people with Down Syndrome and this was to make her early years more manageable.

Attending mainstream nursery and primary school, we have just been through the most stressful months due to our efforts to find an appropriate secondary school so that Emma could continue the positive education she had received so far. Mainstream schools were saying she needed too much support and special needs schools were saying she was too able to meet their criteria! Surely it shouldn't be too much to ask for: an inclusive, mainstream secondary school?

This is one challenge we believe we have now resolved but frustrating because there are others we now need to pick up once more... Social Services, NHS. Which do we tackle first?

I called in Social Services as both our younger child and I are regularly the targets of Emma's aggressive behaviour. The call was placed in May 2011 and, to date, we have received assessments but no support... Depressing and inaccurate reports have been written and appointments not kept.  All in all a really weak and ineffective service leaving us feeling let down "big time".

NHS well...? Let's just say there's no hope... I don't want to depress things!!! Shambolic is all that I can say.

Emma is adorable and doing extremely well but no thanks to systems, purely down to pure hard graft and persistence from family. This is not a life to recommend, but would we be without our gorgeous girl.... NO WAY!

She truly is amazing and a must to meet. She will positively change anyone's view on disability and, in particular, Down Syndrome.

(This girl needs her privacy so we have not used her real name.)

If you want to write your family story, please get in touch and I will answer your questions. There are some notes here. 

Please circulate to families and parent networks if you can

Peter Limbrick

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tel: 01497 831550