‘Breaks your heart’: rural kids waiting on critical development services

Teacher Taryn Stephens working with her son Lachie, who has a speech disability, in Warren in western NSW. Stephens says children in the region are not getting the health and education support services they need. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

At St Mary’s Parish school in Warren, Taryn Stephens can tell which of her pupils haven’t yet had luck accessing the help they need.

“I can point every single one of them out,” the teacher says. “There’s a lot of them.”