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Supporting disbaled people unsustainable?

190 replies

SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 13:31

here


I hate this sort of uncertainty. I have trained part and full time for seven years now alongside two disabled kids to get to the point where I was hoping to train in social work in 2013- but if DLA vaniushes it will be unaffordable. I feel we have lived up to every Tory ideal, battling redundancy, my DH's illness and the boy's SN with constant battles to get back on line, and now I think I might just give up after all- can;t train until thenas no childcare means DH must be working from home to care and he dosn;t qualify until then, and we will need to move and cannot do so with the SNU realistically until 2013 (a SW trained where we are in Wales cannot practice in England but we need to get back to family badly for support and help, both for them as they age and us as we try and fit in work).

Working in tesco woudln't ever cover the huge costs of disability childcare.

I acknowledge that this is a left wing article, there's a thread on this in SN with a less reactionary letter from teh NAS C&P's to it, but is this how big society was meant to work? Sorry disabled people, there's no money- saldy when it comes to ds3 there's no cure either- can I never afford to die then? Will there be any care left for him?

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 13:32

hread (though its for read only- MN convention is that SN is not for political argument)

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 13:33

(And I know my typing is poor sorry; always is but a little shaken at all this)

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Notevenamouse · 07/12/2010 13:42

Big society is sadly a cover up for what was always the conservative moto - survival of the fittest and richest and the rest can get lost. We are in a similar position.

SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 13:48

Scary isn't it? I never beleived in big Society as anything other than a nice little idea packaged up to cover cuts, but how severe cuts to support for children like ds3 who ahve no option of ever working can be abything other than harmful I do not know.

It took years to negotiate the last system; teh idea of facing it before his award runs out when he is 16 is terrifying. And becuase he is not in a wheelchair and has no actual LD (he cannot use the IQ he does have) he is of the type that fail the EMA assessments (he has a 2 minute attention span and is limited in his speech so is unemployable) and there's talk of legal help to go to challenge decisions being taken as well.

There's no test for ASD but am beginning to think if there had been he'd have been better off not born for his own sake because if this is the society I entrust him to when I die then he's stuffed.

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SnowWoman · 07/12/2010 13:54

I cannot think coherently about this yet - how can they cut DLA, close disabled workshops and businesses, spend years refusing to provide specialist help at school, and then say our children can get on their bikes and get a job like everybody else?

smallwhitecat · 07/12/2010 14:00

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 14:14

It was a direct quote fro the article which is why I put in the ? mark

now if I said coalition says disabled people are.., I agree that would be misleading

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 14:18

(I also acknowledged biAS OF SOURCE IN op AS WELL)

Sod it caps, sory, ds4 being a breastfeeding obsessive at this very moment!

I mighht be feeling a little shaken which mnay well translate; I am scared to buggery, I hate uncertainty and in fact at the very elast wish they held of to Christmas- but did not attempt to mislead anyone. not my style at all.

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sarah293 · 07/12/2010 14:24

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LadyBlaBlah · 07/12/2010 14:26

It is not misleading to say that IDS refers to DLA as an 'Out of Work benefit", which is why this is of no surprise at all.

SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 14:28

You can;t see ds1's ASD (you can ds3's) but without help even the psych agreed he would end up in priosn (before discharging us, as he didn't want help- eh? I did!.
Long term he will work- I am sure of that- but it would always be employed eitehr by self or DH, he would be a liability in any other environment. He's a liability here but love makes us keep going.

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sarah293 · 07/12/2010 14:33

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smallwhitecat · 07/12/2010 14:36

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 15:05

Of course it's true of all Sn SWC; there's a thread in SN you might have not seen that I started with an appeal wrt this from the NAS. might be worth your input too.

And LOL at teh burglars. Sort of anyway, ykwim.

DH worked through depression; it was ridiculously ahrd and he probably shouldn;t have but he was at the very severe end and we knew so many people using far less severe illness as a reason to give in. It seems if you have morals you can be easily stuffed but if you don't this probably won't be enough to stop you anyway.

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Nickiename · 07/12/2010 15:13

I find the fact that these wankers want to cut DLA without even knowing what it bloody well IS, makes me want to commit violence, frankly. How dare they?

StewieGriffinsMom · 07/12/2010 15:19

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reallytired · 07/12/2010 15:24

Britain has chanaged and the welfare state needs to be reviewed from time to time.

Given the fact that David Cameron's late son was very disabled, I doult that he wants to attack disabled people. I think we can be confident that David Cameron has more insight into disablity than many politicians.

The problem is fear as people do not know what the consequences of change will be.

Nickiename · 07/12/2010 15:30

David Cameron has insight into what disability is like alright - for for people who are millionaires. I don't suppose DLA was terribly important to him, as he'd find gold ingots down the back of his sofa.
The problem is fear alright. Fear of people who intend to cut a benefit they don't understand in the slightest.

Nickiename · 07/12/2010 15:31

One minister compared people living in supported accommodation to people living in hospitals, and said that's why they didn't need any money. People don't bloody LIVE in hospital. Many people in supported accommodation have lively minds, interests, friends etc, but trapped in very uncooperative bodies. They want to go out and have a life like anyone else, but how can they if they have no money at all?

StewieGriffinsMom · 07/12/2010 15:36

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nightmarebeforechristmas · 07/12/2010 15:38

please don't think for one minute that DC has any idea what it it is like for most disabled people and their cares. he doesn't have a clue, and seem very keen on proving that.

SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 15:42

You know, fear alone is a cruel thing- announcements without back up are horrible when you ahve no options but to wait.

But DC is but one person: he cannot have a real understanding of every aspect becuase as he admitted to Riven he could buy in the practical help he needed. Emotionally I have no doubt but one's philosophy of why people are able to have or not ahve the resources would feed any interpretation.

The reality is that massive numbers of people who cannot work are being thrown off EMA becuase the tests are unfit for purpose- unless we believe that every person who can pick up a pencil on request (ds3 could, possibly) can hold a job? And that it is OK for those turned down by people who have no real training to then be denied the resources to appeal? My specialism is ASD: you would struggle to find people less able to appeal amongst the non LD population than someone with an ASD. At the same time the people who would normally help- often in LA employment- are losing their jobs left right and centre, or indeed if in voluntary employment as many advocates are being forced back into paid employment becuase of many factors- bioth cuts to state help and a mass rising in redundancies within everyone's families.

The support system as it is, DLA is one of teh elast abused benefits in existence- a lot of the stats given out are in fact applicable to ESA which nobody would be likely to argue has been secure. But the difference between a benefit that someone can get on the say so of one GP and one that is hard to get with a wedge of aperpwork from many experts is tangible.

Ultimately experience of something amkes no difference, only interpretations of the reasons behind something. My dad's family was raised in abject poverty (real, hunger causing poverty) and half that family are very compassionate to other people in the situation, and half absolutely of the belief that if they survived so can anyone, sod them. I'm not saying DC does (or doesn't) believe that but it is a relevant illustration.

It's not as if it's ideal either now: ds1 is up for a place at a local ASD comp. Two places, with currently 37 kids needing those places after the screening process. DS1 was at the top of the list at one stage but I know that a lcoal SNU has put forwards some other children as emergency cases: who knows what will happen as the other local comp has said they cannot meet his needs. he gets no other input- zero- so we know he will probably lose DLA at the next application (June) based not on his disability but a lack of evidence due to service cutbacks, but any scheme brought in utilising under trained assessors and with a target to cut claims by 20% is going to harm people. There is not 20% of people falsely claiming DLA, and if there were they need to start sacking a lot of NHS professionals becuase it is them who verify the forms.

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 15:50

And of course as any politican knows- they can take it away and you know what? 'they' win (a random 'they': I don't believe not caring to be a rpeserve of any one party). Because we will still feed and love our kids, oh yes the SN may mean we still cannot work and live in poverty but the kids will be alright.
Until we die, of course. My boys are unsupported by SSD; if that situation remains (I suspect it will) and something happened to the last surving one of us what woudl happen to ds3 I wonder? Well I know; he'd sit staring at his PC without eating, drinking, moving or using a toilet until he starved. Nice thought. Or maybe ds1 could take him in? The fact ds1 is physically abusive to ds3 unless we keep them in sight at all times would not be noted by anyone as after all, he qualifies for nothing.

And it almost makes me laugh that I am 'lucky' to have two disabled kids- ds3 disability is indisputable. DS1's is only visible over time and experiecne. No childcare institution would touch him though so I can actually imagine a situation where his benefits would be cut meaning i'd lose my carers, as I coudln;t work, but i;d lose JSA as well becuase I couldn't seek work, or turn up at those compulsory work events without him in tow either. Thank goodness ds3 is more visibly severe eh? What a bizarre conclusion to have to reach!

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SantasMooningArse · 07/12/2010 15:51

EMA- esa. Doh.

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smallwhitecat · 07/12/2010 17:09

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