Disability living allowance

[Orangesky87]

Hi all.

Our DS is just turning 6. He has a major trauma background and presents with all the expected attachment, trauma and dysregulation behaviours. School has been extremely difficult in his first year, and home is hard too. Paediatricians and Ed psychs have been involved and everything he presents deemed related to trauma and attachment. CAMHS aren’t keen to assess for several months given his age and we are very early in EHCP application stages.

It was mentioned to us by a social worker friend we could apply for disability living allowance. She advised that to claim this you don’t need any diagnosis or any diagnosed disability - purely evidence of assessments, behaviours, school reports etc. Another social worker however told us they need a ‘diagnosis’ of something to claim, which is contrary to what we were told by the original social worker.

Clearly he is too young for any ‘diagnosis’ and there’s no sense in labelling him with one so young when his issues are clearly trauma related. I know DLA payments arent huge but we want to explore it as an option given the cost of living and extra support we often need for him.

Is anyone clued up on DLA or claimed it; and what the process involves?

Thankyou

Absolutely apply. We get it for our eldest whose difficulties are trauma based. You need to show that his needs are greater than the needs of an average child of the same age. Any professional reports and assessments will provide evidence and someone external (perhaps school?) needs to write a short summary. If you phone for the pack, they will back date payments to the date you phoned as long as you complete it in about a month.

I’ve just started receiving it for DS. He has several diagnoses and under several professionals and we were turned down initially and I had to argue against it. Apparently this is very common. I looked for advice on her (not under adoption, just generally) and found lots of helpful information and advice. The most important thing I learnt was to send in as much information as possible. Every letter and email from everyone who you’re working with. The more detail you can send, the better. The good news is, although it’s a bloody long process (it took 4 months for me!), they start the timing from your initial application. So, even though I was initially turned down, I then got back payment from when I applied

The test for DLA is that the child needs more care and support than the average child of the same age.
Diagnosis can help to evidence that, but it's only one piece of evidence.
It's not an insignificant amount- my son had low rate mobility and middle rate care which came to £350 a month. If he receives it you would also get enhanced tax credits and potentially carers allowance if you are unable to work because of his needs.
Not the main point but as a carer you also get free tickets for cinemas, theatres, attractions etc.
CAB and Cerebra have really good guides on how to complete the forms, words to use etc.
By the way 6 isn't too young for diagnosis, my son was diagnosed with ASD at 4.
It's hard but think about his worst days - that's what you need to get across.

Agree with all the others. Definitely apply. You don’t need a diagnosis just need to be able to show, as Ted says, that your child needs more help and support than a ‘typical’ child their age.

You definitely need to articulate on the forms what life is like on the ‘worst’ days. For this reason it can be quite a challenge mentally to fill the form in because you’re having to focus on all their difficulties rather than being positive about them which is what you do in day to day life.

if you get rejected at first go ask for mandatory reconsideration and then appeal if you are still turned down. I get DLA for DD, with no specific diagnosis but lots of evidence from various professionals about how early life trauma impacts on her ability to do things a ‘typical’ child her age can do.

From experience I would advise always to over explain something in the form rather than assume the assessor will know something because you mentioned it at a previous question.

Our DS5 gets DLA. He has global development delay but a lot of other issues relating to trauma/attachment. The key is that your child needs more care than a typical child of their age. Use the cerebra guide and send in as much evidence as possible.

I’d echo using the Cerebra guide - it gives good examples of wording for the different struggles your child has and the kind of support they need. I get DLA for my DD, she has varied complex needs, the hard thing is to think of them on their worst day under every heading - it may not reflect your day to day experience in that everything isn’t usually triggered every day but it’s important because, in my case, bad days are pretty hard going and she needs a lot of support.

Its definitely worth applying for.

We get DLA for both if our children aged 9 and 10. We got refused first time for eldest but reapplied with more evidence and has been granted. 9 year old has higher needs, attends specialist school after being out of education for quite a while, and this helped us hugely as one of us had to give up work with all the meetings, appointments, travel to school etc. We also applied for a disabled badge for eldest due to his amazing ability to run and not be safe around cars and general lack of awareness of the dangers around him.
My advice would be apply for everything. All you are doing is stating facts, supplying evidence and allowing a decision to be made. Also keep copied of everything, forms tend to go missing mysteriously!!

You don't need a diagnosis. The key to claiming dla is time. How much more time does your child need from you than an NT kid would? You really need to step back and think about what you do each day for them and what would happen if you didn't.
The other key is written evidence. Can you back everything up?
Leave yourself 40 hours to do that form. It's not just the writing - it's the finding the letters, putting them in order, photocopying/taking photos of the whole thing before you send it off (necessary because you'll not see it again but will be required to refer to it at the next stage)
And its exhausting and emotional filling it in. I found I needed to scribble examples down in each section so I was glad I had 2 copies. I kept coming back to it and adding more or moving things from 1 category to another.
Where I realised I had blanks of evidence I'd email the social worker/Paed etc I'd discussed it with asking if they could confirm by return we'd talked about x on y date. So again it's time rifling through the diary and looking up contact details.
The cerebra guide is good but also useful to download the Medical Guide the assessors refer to. Use the terminology they use. www.gov.uk/government/publications/medical-guidance-for-dla-decision-makers-child-cases-staff-guide