Whole families on UC, PIP, DLA and carers' allowance for each other?

And yet we have PP including myself who have had direct experience of generational reliance on benefits and joblessness. Both can be true.

Why have you written this like an excerpt from a book?
so much waffle. Make your point clearer because it’s not.

I see you saying disadvantaged kids (for many reasons) have disadvantaged parents.

no shit.

you sound incredibly smug

See it all the time in schools - obviously not everyone on benefits is like this by any means but there are a definite group that I feel have been let down by society and as you say it’s become a generational cycle - no aspirations, poor mental health etc

Maybe the OP is “offensive”, unrealistic, lacking in empathy - I don’t know. Equally, lots of people really do need help, and it shouldn’t be a struggle to access or dealt out with patronage. All I will say is that we have massively increases numbers & cost in relation to benefits since Covid and we need to get back to pre-Covid levels ASAP. As a country we are failung in griwth and can’t afford to continue the way we are. Open discussion is an essential start to this process.

It is cyclical. It was single Mothers at one point, who faced disgusting scrutiny. The thing that these groups who are being attacked have in common, is that they are vulnerable people.

I'm surprised you couldn't get PIP, I've got it for at least two clients with exactly those diagnoses. One of them was initially declined, but we appealed and won.

Pleased to hear that your health has improved, it's a horrible combination to endure.

And people who cant stop having children when they shouldn't be

This is more common in working class areas. Not bashing, it is a reality for some households, sometimes the children are diagnosed as having educational difficulties due to their home life.
They never had to play by the rules before starting school, home life can definitely stunt development.

It won’t be a mumsnet majority experience, when you live in an area like I do, where benefits pay more than working it happens, life can become boring small and lose meaning, they trade tips for application forms outside of the school.

I know a few families who are in this situation. Sadly addiction creeps in when life is dull, whether it’s food, Netflix, drink, or drugs.

I don't think anyone disputes that it can happen, it's the stated prevalence and the inevitable smearing of whole groups of people that people like myself fond upsetting.

I take issue with the OP thinking she knows what people are claiming PIP for (anxiety and MH she says). I doubt she knows them in that much detail. Apart from anything else, the threshold for receiving PIP for these issues is extremely high. My psychiatrist describes my anxiety as ‘severe’ and yet I did not get a single point on PIP for issues created by anxiety or MH. I expect lots of people I know well assume I am receiving PIP for anxiety and mental health. I am not. I am receiving it for invisible physical health conditions.

She also seems to think she knows what these people do all day in their own home/ (game and watch Tv). I really doubt she actually knows.

This is the biggest load of self-serving do-gooder tosh I've read in quite some time.

As you well know, DLA is hard to get, as is PIP. UC isn't that easy either, comes with obligations, and isn't actually enough to survive on (without the housing element; not sure if that makes it any easier). I would never go to what sounds like an appalling and badly run type of 'presentation' you got so much out of it. (By the way, why was the TA making coffee for everyone? Surely her time would be better spent elsewhere? Buy a big water heater and have paper cups out and a jar of nescafe for people to make their own coffee.) Why do people like you look at someone struggling, broke, unable to work or pursue further education due to caring responsibilities and say, 'I know what she needs? A parenting class! That will fix it all!'

Benefit did NOT make these parents the way they are. How about looking at some research identifying approaches other countries have (successfully) tried and working out which elements would work here?

I do have to dispute this. I know a few people with private diagnosis for various conditions, when you are paying you can often get the doctor to write / say whatever you want, make amendments, pay them to write letters and other documentation, which can then be submitted to DLA and PIP.

It’s an uncomfortable truth but a truth nonetheless 🤷🏻‍♀️

It sounds like you should have been able to claim something, when you were ill. The fact that you could not, has no bearing on anyone else who does. The PIP process is not interested in what your illness, or disability is. It is about how an illness, and disability impacts a person's life. If that is not communicated on the form properly, then the claim is likely to be denied. Nobody is getting paid PIP for 'sod all'. That is unfair, and untrue to state so.

The majority on pip would like to do something.

wheelchair accessibility in the current society is appalling. I get pip following an accident which means I use a wheelchair full time.

I go to a lot of disability social groups now (don’t work any more as medically retired) and honestly the majority would love to work.

but employers don’t want someone in a wheelchair who physically can’t access most of the shop/museum/workplace.

it’s a bit better now as working from home is more accepted so some more of my friends have got part time jobs.

it would genuinely cost an absolutely insane amount of money to get everyone on pip working. Think about the limited possibilities - the jobs most easily available are care, teaching assistant, retail. Someone who is blind can’t work as a carer in a care home without having a 1:1 to support yuem.

i used to teach (from a wheelchair) and my school once assigned me to a school trip out to support another lad in a wheelchair. I’m in a wheelchair myself - I can’t assist him with toileting or help him move.

asking people on pip to do free work would have a massive take up (see the occasional internships for disabled people the government runs - horrendously oversubscribed and very hard to get on) but cost an absolute bomb.

Shall we go back to having workhouses and orphanages??

Why should people with disabilities be treated like second class citizens and have to justify what they spend their money on when they already struggle in a world that wasn’t designed for them?

I can always tell which people have no idea what it’s like to raise disabled children or how much more they cost than non disabled children when I read comments like yours.

My friends disabled child is out of school atm because schools are shite thanks to many years of austerity and she’s paying £90 per hour for her child to have a SEN tutor.

If you want a two-tier system of treatment for humans then there is a word for that - fascism.

That would please some people, make no mistake about that.

Unfortunately op what you witnessed is identical to my personal observations. I feel sorry for the kids to be honest. This isn’t benefit bashing, it’s an observation that the cycle of low expectations, mental health problems caused potentially by lifestyle then going forward Sen caused by parenting. I suspect that in time we will realise these cyclical cases have underlying genetic conditions hence multiple generations.

kids do break out of the cycle but typically it takes dedicated teachers and other adults in their lives who demonstrate another pathway. I know a lad who has (neither parents nor grandparents worked) hes a computer coding person of some description.

I have three kids with ehcps who get dla or pip. Imagine my surprise to be in this situation as a STEM graduate from a corporate role.

I have met hundreds of other SEN parents. I'm also a SEN school governor.

What I have learnt? Lots of parents also have undiagnosed SEN symptoms. Some have grown up with no support to escape their own lack of support / diagnosis/ education in some cases.

Gobsmacked you haven't seen this.

How many people on the prison system have ADHD? You should know that % as a professional.

I have been to parenting classes and thought it's a load of bollocks. Because I have yet to find one that shows me how to "cure / fix / remove the sysmtoms that get my kids diagnosed" .

What's the answer? Remove dla, pip, carers allowance? Without those I'd struggle to house my severely disabled son at times and would certainly have to think hard about a residential setting for him.

Spoiler, I'd not be paying for that and it's more than his DLA.

Remove diagnosed? Let's all the kids get expelled to a pru? Then drop out of education? Find jobs for kids who grow up with no gcses? You want to employ those kids as adults? No? Want to pay their benefits? No? Want them living rough on your high street? No?

Give me the perfect solution whee no one pays for anything and SEN kids grow up educated and able to fully contribute to society. Because you have the golden bullet right there.

After that give me a answer to stop heart disease and cancer to save the nhs. Unfortunately it's not just fat lazy smokers who get heart disease or cancer. So it's a bit more tricky to say they are just lazy bad spongers.

Comments like this are ridiculous.

If you are working FT in a job you hate and can barely afford to keep a roof over your head then of course you will begrudge people going on multiple holidays year and enjoying a higher standard of life than you all at the cost of the taxpayer. It isn't equitable and it will drive all sorts of perverse behaviours.

Disability and ill health is nowhere near as black and white as you and many others suggest. Many of us are slogging away at work with chronic conditions and poor health. Over three quarters of people over 45-64 have a chronic health condition and lots of these will make working harder. We can't all claim benefits and stop working. Very little help and support is available because guess what, there is no money. Yet someone pointing out that some on benefits shouldn't be on effectively tax payer funded holidays and you get called jealous. It's like the ultimate playground taunt. If you don't like something and think it's wrong then you must be jealous... We need to be able to have nuanced debate without resorting to lazy tropes like calling everyone jealous or benefit bashers.

I would rather that UK paid for these services than forking more or less random out.

It seems to work a lot better in other countries not to have all these paid family members. One benefit would also be useful to hand out. My native country it's a benefit a bot more than minimum wages. Not a open pot of money. At all.
No pip no extra money for being your partner's or mum's carer. No first to council housing. Not all that fuss.

I think I can see where `OP is coming from.

But having children with disabilities is a bit of an anomaly; the sort of people she is describing exist without DC with disabilities and plenty of people with are not like the families she is describing.

I think there is a real problem with multi-generational and whole families claiming benefits. I know families through my work who fall into this category and it's a cultural issue rather than genuine needs.

This. The low power level jobs that were once available are now very hard /impossible to find. As an employer, employing people who cannot regularly turn up and do the job that they are paid for is a significant management challenge that doesn’t grow the top line / makes the business thrive.

It’s ‘easier’ all round for people to live off benefits and they have a better quality of life than working as they have more disposable income and more time.

The harsh reality in the business I work in, is that trying to employ an unskilled worker, on a salary under £45k is just not attractive to someone in a rented house with children as they are better of claiming a variety of benefits.
Someone will say then pay them £45k per year to do an unskilled job but the reality is our customers will not pay higher prices and the business will close. Why should business owners work really hard to make no profit?
if they make no profit, they also pay no corporation tax which means less money for benefits.

A lot of people om minimum wages are being second class. Work hard only getting by.

You saying this does not make it true. Actually it’s bollocks. There is no doctor who would be stupid enough to risk their reputation and credibility (not to mention being struck off) by faking a diagnosis for money.

And yes, the NHS does outsource diagnosis assessments to doctors doing independent work nowadays because the NHS has had money stripped away from it for years.