A database of news and information about people with disabilities and disability issues...
Copyright statement: Unless otherwise stated, all posts on this blog continue to be the property of the original author/publication/Web site, which can be found via the link at the beginning of each post.
An all-Ireland centre for children with autism is back on track after the Irish government ended a pause in funding.
Irish prime minister Brian Cowen said his government would return to backing the Middletown Centre of Excellence.
In May, the centre's future was in doubt, when the Dail withdrew finances citing economic pressure.
The decision was announced at a meeting of the North/South Ministerial Council, which involved Mr Cowen, and NI's First and Deputy First Ministers in Limavady.
Education departments in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic have been equally financing the Middletown project.
The centre was approved in 2002 but has only opened in a limited way.
It is understood that £6m has already been spent on the centre.
It currently carries out research and training for professionals who work within the autism field, but the eventual aim had been to take children in.
The next stage of building a residential block for assessment and therapy, and employing extra staff, was at jeopardy because of the shortage of funds.
At the meeting on Monday, plans to progress a new road project from Aughnacloy to Londonderry and on to Donegal were also agreed.
Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness and Mr Cowen also discussed the economy and ways in which the North and South could cooperate.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From BBC News:
