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

Having worked in the sector I absolutely recognise this op. Multi generational worklessness is a massive issue. Successive governments have tried a variety of schemes to address it, with minimal success. I don’t know what the answer is.

So, as an ‘SEN teacher’, how do you conclude that people you’re supposed to be supporting with disabilities are faking it in order not to have to work?

And also the job market is hard enough for a bright person without disabilities to break into at the moment.

The Tories were the ones who originally peddled this nonsense and eventually even they admitted they had no evidence of generations of people who don’t work.

it’s a lie.

Bizarre response. Why would I lie about 30+ years of personal experience? It’s not a lie, it is a fact and I see it day in, day out. It’s a multi dimensional issue which needs massive resources to address.

You’re raising two children with significant needs plus now also work alongside other parents of children with SEN and you can’t understand why their parents have significant MH issues? Why is that, do you have zero empathy? You think every parent should just get up and on with it in the way you have?

Whilst I do have a child with SEN, it isn’t severe enough to impact my career but it doesn’t mean I can’t possibly understand why it would for some people. They’d have to get up and find a job that fit around the child’s school hours for starters which is never easy. Maybe they don’t have qualifications. Maybe they have SEN themselves. Maybe they’re just constantly knackered because their children don’t sleep. I don’t know, many reasons really.

Intergenerational benefit claimamts, thousands up and down the country; I come from one! Out of my mums and her 5 siblings, two work. One is genuinely unable to work, and the other claims carers allowamce/UC disabled element for them, meaning they don't need to work themselves. Despite only going over to their sibling once a week to drop off shopping. Alao gets a motability car. One is on disability benefit due to a range of MH conditions; depression, anxiety, agrophobia...despite regular fishing trips and a recent holiday to New York. My mum herself claims carers allowance for my one of my brothers kids, all of whom have ADHD/autism. My brother and his partner claim for the other kids. The only one I don't begrudge benefits is the one who is genuinely unable to work. My gran barely worked, due to her 'nerves'.

It's so easy for people to say that this doesn't happen, but for those of us who grew up like this, we can assure you it does.

You have some points OP. But we don’t want to end up like the USA do we? With a limited safety net and homeless children because a lot of people just suck at life.
I think that with the job losses due to AI etc we need to be strategic about how to run society. Accepting that large numbers can’t compete for the available jobs and making sure that work pays for those that work even harder as companies compete to run with fewer staff so jobs become harder. Why can’t we all do a four day week instead of the workers supporting 20% to do nothing?
Would need proper taxation though which is too hard in a globalised economy.

Went slightly off topic there. I do think disability benefits need an overhaul. They make it too easy to opt out as levels are high enough to make work a disbenefit and that’s so bad for young people. But who will honestly want to employ them?

Woman learns ASD and Mental health issues are hereditary. 👍🙄

Given we don't have a system that can provide a job, let alone a well paying job for everyone anyway, some sort of welfare state will always be unavoidable to stop those at the bottom from becoming destitute and homeless. There are only about 700,000 uk job vacancies at the moment and it seems like a lot of these are likely ghost jobs (possibly around 1/3 according to some analyses eg Forbes). Of those remaining (possibly fewer than half a million), many will be part time/minimum wage/zero hour contracts. There are likely only a few hundred thousand decent, full time jobs currently available - hence all the stories of hundreds of applications for every half-decent role. And we have many millions of people not currently working. I think it makes sense that the people not working are the people who are low functioning and struggling to look after disabled kids. It makes far less sense pushing these people into work as it will mean fewer jobs for the people who are actually much better able to do them. But of course we need to make every effort to give the kids the best chance of being able to work if their health/disability status allows it.

Reading all this with interest in relation to my thread about driverless cars and my concern about yet more unskilled work sectors being entirely wiped out to be replaced by nothing. I had comments such as “tech is here to stay, we must adapt or die” etc.
But this comment and others here illustrate perfectly that there are NO JOBS for unskilled people. A PP commented that massive corporations like Amazon Starbucks etc don’t pay enough tax as it is, Uber soon to join them.
So Uber Amazon etc will be both creating massive unemployment at the same time as not contributing their fair share to support the people they replace with machines.
Just what kind of jobs are these adults on multiple benefits supposed to do? Looking back to roles I did while I was learning and training and there is no replacement-

office admin? Gone
call centre staff? Gone
data entry? Gone
factory worker? Gone
shelf stacker? Gone
delivery driver? Gone
taxi driver? Gone

this covers thousands and thousands of jobs in a masive range of businesses small and large that have just been wiped out, with no replacement.

what are adults with low/no skills, some degree of MH issues, some physical disabilities meant to do? There’s no part time work, no work from home call centre roles etc etc. Claiming benefits is their only option and more and more able bodied, increasingly competent people will be joining them as the entry level jobs get more and more skilled and competitive.

We need to tax big business properly and protect unskilled jobs to ensure as many families as possible can provide for themselves else the cycle of worklessness and the MH issues this creates will break the whole country. Unsafe practices should be managed, taxis and delivery vehicle engine speeds restricted, cameras installed etc, not replace them with non human drivers.

Work is a human right and should not be the preserve of the highly skilled and educated only - these issues are directly linked and this needs to be recognised and discussed in government.

Loophole in the law and yes absolutely ridiculous.

I think PP point about work simply not being accessible to some people is probably true. The reality is that the workplace has got a bit more demanding and complicated, if you have learning difficulties of mild cognitive impairments you are going to struggle a lot. Couple that with a system which will give you options to basically not work, no real consequences for not doing anything or not caring for your children etc it’s not surprising.

Also theres quite a bit of overlap between things like neglect and ADHD, remember reading an interview with a researcher (oxford or Cambridge, can’t remember which) who pointed this out.

Op isn’t criticising people with disabilities broadly she’s noting that something has gone horribly wrong.

When my mum lived in the UK her neighbour was blind, due to this her husband received carers allowance as he was her eyes. Her husband then developed Parkinsons and very quickly lost his abiity to walk and do basic personal care. Due to this his wife did the majority of his personal care and was the person getting him out and about in his wheelchair.

I think we need to heavily restrict low skilled migration and heavily incentivise high skilled migration to make this happen, businesses can move. No-one is obliged to stand still while you tax the living daylights out of them. And I mean genuinely high skilled.

We also can’t be doing stuff like raising the tax credits cap on two kids. If you need help to support your family, thats fine, but theres absolutely no reason for more than two.

@Hutinthemiddleofnowhere I don't see the connection you're trying to make with Send children- lazy parents on benefits. I have seen lazy parents on benefits who do not have Send children and whose children are disruptive due to poor education- not Send. Being a parent of a SEN teen myself I can't see any higher pourcentage of parents who game the system and don't care for their children than in the general population.

I don't work myself even though my kids are teens now. My ASD teen has put our family through hell due to his mh issues. I have been the one caring for him at nights, homeschooling for a couple of years, helping him every day while his ocd and anxiety drives me crazy. Yet I remain calm and focussed even though I am a wreck. My dh can focus on his job because I care for our teens and home. I would rather have "normal" children and live a "normal" life but it's not possible due to the severity of mh issues my son is enduring. The lack of sleep and ongoing challenges for 16 years has taken a deep toll on my physical and psychological ressources and I'm on antidepressants to stay alive. But you will be happy to hear that we don't get any benefits except for dla because my husband earns sufficiently to provide for us. I would love to have a normal life, working in order to have a social context. I don't have any friends left because I'm too tired to go out in the evenings. I would like to work but how could I when I can't be reliable knowing my son can have a dip any given day.

Huh?

very few disabilities are hereditary.

stuff like Down’s syndrome and cystic fibrosis are chromosomal abnormalities and while in some cases parents can be carriers of this is known then screening can be carried out.

what sort of hereditary disabilities are you seeing?

As a parent of a SEN child and as an education professional, I had huge issues with trying to get me child and EHCP. Even children who should be entitled to support often don't get an EHCP and it is often a battle to get this in place

For parents who don't know the system it can be impossible.
Fighting the LA and school to get even minimum support was sole destroying. I had to attend parenting courses too which were a complete waste of time. I had been working as a professional prior to children but I was treated like a child and spoken down to by the organisers of these courses.
Quite frankly I was surviving on virtually no sleep. I was educated but was given advise like 'try a bath and story at bedtime'. It's like people who have no experience stating the most obvious strategies to parents who were not born yesterday and have bloody well tried the obvious and the not so obvious strategies already long before this. It is frankly condescending and a waste of time.

I can no longer work because of the care my child needs. Financially, we are obviously worse of as we rely on one parent wage. We also have additional expenses. Child struggles to be out in busy environments so we do spend a lot of time at home. Often for ND individuals diet can be limited and so it can appear to be parents providing poor food but in reality parent would rather their child ate something than nothing.

Quite frankly just because your adopted children have SEN does not make you an expert on all variants of SEN experience.

Problem is, any genuine attempt to overhaul the system will almost inevitably end up with some genuine claimants missing out. Maybe just me, but I think I’d prefer a system where some people who probably don’t need it are able to benefit, rather than someone genuinely in need ending up with no access to support (I suppose a better 10 guilty men go free than 1 innocent man goes to jail sort of mindset!)

People do not get PIP for simple mental health issues. The PIP is very hard to get and more people don't receive PIP that should receive it.

Anyone getting PIP has to met the criteria which means anyone getting PIP is extremely disadvantaged by their disabilities.

Ie depressed - no PIP
Suicidal, not able to leave the house, needing 1:1 support and monitoring - may or may get PIP depending on the severity of need. But if they get PIP they will have met the criteria (would you prefer to be suicidal with or without PIP or would your prefer to not be suicidal? )

Agree. This is a widespread problem - generations of non working households who are adept at getting everything out of a system which is easy to con.

it sucks resources from those genuinely in need and the country cannot afford it.

I have had children diagnosed at school age. Two of my children qualify for special school but really they are too socially smart for that. We are having homeschool. For the first time I am relying in benefits to help our family. We are slowly builidng our own business to get off any help but for now we need the help. Most parents are not relying on it to be lazy it isn't a fun experience and really can eat at you. I feel like your trying to shame people when we already feel pretty low. we are saving the government money though by not placing my kids in the special schools. I was horrified when I saw how much each child costs the government. WOW

True.

The scale of it today is grotesque and UK can't go on this way. Most other countries in Europe don't fork out like this.

I am another person who has seen in real time that worklessness and complex physical and mental disadvantages can be multigenerational.
Parents of children with SEN children are as varied as any other group but I do recognise what you are describing to an extent OP. Whilst it is always possible to understand and have empathy this doesn't take away from how hard it can be to see children's futures ( and adults too) look so limited.
I agree that the benefits system needs to be overhauled as otherwise many of our young people will never work. And that is awful, for them, for their future families and for communities and society more widely.
The money being spent on PIP for mental health problems could be better spent.
And I feel awful writing that but it's true .

Just so you know, if you claim carers allowance it is deducted from your universal credit, you can't have both

Nice idea, but entirely unaffordable. A line has to drawn somewhere, or as we are seeing, the definition of need will continue to grow.