Last November, Anglicare Sydney announced that it would have to close the Kingsdene School and Residence in Telopea at the end of the 2010 school year. This very difficult decision was made after several years of exhaustive review, consultation and ultimately fruitless negotiation with the state and federal government departments that partially fund Kingsdene.

For a number of years now the school has operated at an annual deficit of over $1 million that Anglicare has had to meet from its own funds in addition to the funding it already provided for Kingsdene. These additional funds came from Anglicare's community care budget that also funds 180 other community service programs across the diocese. Kingsdene is an expensive place to run, and necessarily so, to provide children with the high level of round the clock care and the high teacher to child ratio that is required in both the school and residential settings.

Anglicare Sydney simply cannot raise sufficient funds through government and private sources to keep Kingsdene viable and sustainable for the future. This financial challenge is not a recent development, as Anglicare has struggled to adequately fund Kingsdene for at least five years.

Sustainable, recurrent, external funding has been difficult to obtain for Kingsdene for a number of reasons.

Firstly, Kingsdene is unique and does not fit into any existing funding model. Consequently, the federal government funds Kingsdene as an independent school (not a boarding school for children with exceptionally high needs) with a set amount of funding per child and fund Kingsdene to the full amount to which the school is entitled under that model. Kingsdene currently caters for no more than 21 students, where most independent schools have hundreds of students " so no economies of scale come into play.

Secondly, the post Richmond Report policy framework in which the federal and NSW governments operate does not favour the support of residential special schools like Kingsdene, but instead favours supporting children to live full-time with their families and in their communities. For most children with physical disabilities or mild to moderate intellectual disabilities, this is certainly the best option (and Anglicare is the largest provider of respite and family support services for children with disabilities in Western Sydney). However, anyone who has spent any time with some of the Kingsdene families will soon realise that there is no one-size-fits-all solution in this regard and that Kingsdene meets an important need for both the students and their families.

The fact that Kingsdene has reached the point where it will have to close highlights a number of serious issues which lie at the heart of how our community understands and supports children with severe to profound disabilities and their families.

While residential schools providing for the specific needs of children with severe to profound disabilities are common in countries such as the UK, Kingsdene is the only school of its type left in Australia. It seeks to address a significant, unmet need in our community and allows children with severe to profound disabilities to develop and flourish in their own unique way in a loving, Christian environment. It also allows the families of students to resume a more normal approach to family life, and in particular devote time to their other children during the time the Kingsdene students are cared for (Monday to Friday).

Nevertheless, we believe the federal government is serious about assisting people with disabilities and their carers and the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme and the Productivity Commission's upcoming inquiry into disability care and support are both very welcome developments. Anglicare is committed to working alongside state and federal governments to ensure the best possible outcomes for people with a disability and their carers.

But while there is the possibility of hope for the future, it is likely to be years before either of these initiatives result in any real difference. Anglicare with its limited resources and enormous demand for assistance cannot wait years for an outcome. It is likely that the model of care that Kingsdene provides will be validated in this process but, tragically, Kingsdene will no longer be here. 

In the meantime there are real and desperate needs now.

Australians, including many Christians, generally remain insulated and unaware of the enormous challenges faced not only by Kingsdene's families, but by the many hundreds of other families for whom there is no Kingsdene to help them. A massive shift in the community understanding of disability and the needs of carers is required, and Christian communities made up of gospel-shaped believers need to be at the forefront of that change.
Anglicare has committed itself to meeting the shortfall in funding for Kingsdene for the 2010 school year. Following the closure of the school Anglicare will redirect available funding towards the establishment of the Kingsdene Respite Cottage in western Sydney. The proposed respite service is designed to provide a higher level of respite than is currently available through other services. It is envisioned that the new service could provide a service for up to 100 families who will be able to access respite for up to a week at a time, with far more frequency than is available elsewhere.

Anglicare will also employ a social worker for to assist the 15 families with children still enrolled in the school to transition into other programs and services, including where possible, the new Kingsdene respite Cottage.