Parents have shared their frustrations over a lack of support for their children with special needs. With the general election looming on July 4, the Manchester Evening News chatted to families at a soft play centre in Westhoughton, Bolton , to find out whether any party has their support and what they think is needed from government. Mum-of-four Sarah Kelly told us she has no intention of voting and feels let down by the entire system.
With all her children having special needs, she says she's struggled to get the help they require and has had to 'fight for it' on her own. Her eldest son Thomas, 15, has been diagnosed with autism and possibly ADHD, but he was 14 before he even got the diagnosis. "Thomas self harms and It was only through CAMHS [Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service] that he got the autism diagnosis as before that we'd just been waiting and his school wasn't much help," said Sarah, who lives in Great Lever.
READ MORE: The Greater Manchester town where a 'five-minute journey can take half an hour' "You get help for it, but you've got to fight for it. You don't get anyone saying 'this is where you need to apply, you need to do this, that and the other'. You've got to find out about it all off your own back.
"There's no one there that'll help point you in the right direction. Unless you've got friends with children with them sort of needs that have gone through it and they say to you 'you have to do this' and 'this is what we did', there's no-one that helps.