Walkout strands disabled children

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About 40 preschool children with cerebral palsy or other neurological motor disorders cannot attend conductive education classes in Auckland after an employment dispute.

The classes ceased after five specially trained "conductors" resigned on June 2 from disability service provider Iris.

Iris chief executive John Wade told parents on June 22 that the company did not want to accept the resignations and had spent three weeks trying to negotiate a return to work through a mediation process.

Mr Wade said the company was advertising for conductors so the programme could be restarted as soon as possible. "Realistically, however, we expect this to take some months."

Iris would continue to offer a preschool education service at the centre.

Parents unhappy with the outcome, and with no other conductive education service available in Auckland, raised their concerns with the board of the Cerebral Palsy Society, which owns Iris.

That has resulted in the board, Iris management and a group of parents meeting to discuss how the service should operate.

Neither Mr Wade nor the parents would say what caused the dispute.

The Herald understands the conductors cited several grievances and felt they were in an "unsafe work environment".

Parents are determined to get conductive education up and running again.

"The reality is that requires the reinstatement of the five conductors due to the difficulty of recruiting new conductors," one said.

"Conductors are gems and hard to come by," another said. "The Auckland service was world class and considered one of the best conductive education services in the world."

Developed by Professor Andras Peto in Hungary in the 1940s, conductive education is form of special education and rehabilitation. Hungarian-trained conductors work alongside parents teaching children with motor disorders.