A BINFIELD mum whose son suffers from epilepsy is backing a call to the Government to fund respite services, after the family's was slashed in half.

Sandra Beadon's nine-year-old son Finn, a pupil at Kennel Lane School, has complex needs, developmental delay and uncontrolled epilepsy and she hopes to encourage local authorities to invest more in short breaks services for families with disabled children.

The family used to be entitled to monthly Saturday sessions allowing them to leave Finn with trusted carers but have seen this go down to only once every two months.

Sandra, who is a trained secondary school teacher and now works at a pupil referral unit as a one-to-one teacher three mornings a week, said: "The threat of further cuts to this service which we rely on as a family is always lurking in the background. When Finn spends time in respite my husband and I are able to do things with our other two children. 

"It gives us a rare opportunity to be able to focus on them and each other and to spend time together doing things that other families might take for granted - maybe go to the cinema or go out to lunch. 

"My daughter Rose, 12, goes to ballet and my other son Ko, 14, goes to football, but there are just things we just can't do with Finn, like go to football in the pouring rain so someone has to stay home with him, so it splits the family up. 

She went on: "We love Finn dearly. When we use short break services and he is away from us we know he is happy, interacting with other people and developing a sense of independence in a safe environment.

"It’s good for him and it’s good for the rest of the family. It means we have time to exhale, to relax. 

"Without this service we would be more restricted in where we can go and there would be more pressure on our family because we’d never be able to do something all together.

"Short breaks are essential for us and mean that for a few precious hours we are not on call. We’re not on duty. We are able to spend quality time with each other and our other children which means they don’t miss out emotionally."

She added: "We're coming up to the Autumn Budget and we don't want the Chancellor of Exchequer to cut it any further and if anything we'd like to push for him to put more money into it! It is a real lifeline and I don't know what we would do without it."