ARU Final Report

18 Young people with disabilities’ experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic In addition to these challenges, young people also missed the social side of school or college and seeing their friends in person: I am happy with Zoom but prefer going to college to see my mates again. I’ve been waiting for a long time. It has been alright. It has been very up and down. Up points have been obviously emails and time to talk with the teachers. As much as possible has been in person. Down points – social interaction has been up and down, it is the one time I get mixing with people in college and stuff. Good, but I have felt sad at times when I have not seen all my friends. Started XXX college in September 2020 doing engineering. Find it harder because of the lockdowns and have to do a lot of the work at home but I need a little support… don’t have one-to-one support at home and struggle academically. This social aspect was also reflected in a study by Toseeb et al. (2020), who asked 339 parents and carers of children and young people with SEND in the UK about the support they have needed whilst not in school and in the transition back to school. One of the most frequent supports identified was for their child to see familiar faces. 4.2 Support from services Seventeen of the young people with disabilities had had contact with a variety of services face-to- face before the pandemic. These included social services, social care, leaving care teams, mental health services, and services offered by charities. For the most part the services offered were helpful to these young people: I have had lots of social workers. I got took away from my parents when I was younger. I do think it’s been helpful. It’s hard to talk about. I had a social worker. I found it all helpful. Nothing could be improved it was all great. I saw my social worker, and I had some counselling it was very useful. I feel a lot better. Don’t think it can be improved.