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Original poster

To ask you to read this and help if you can

102 replies

Justlostitwithhim · 09/10/2011 01:23

I've also posted this in SN but am so angry and concerned I have to ask for help from everywhere. Everyone needs to see this: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2046924/Parent-child-ADHD-Have-free-car-1-5bn-taxpayer-funded-scheme.html

I'm so angry I can barely speak. Would anyone be prepared to join me in putting together some sort of pressure group to stop this? I could have cried when it mentioned naughty child syndrome. I think my son has ADHD and he gets overstimulated and is frightened. Why shouldn't such families be entitled to a car? SN, mental or physical massively impact on any family. I'm sure there are better brains than mine who can think of a way to make a stand. Please feel free to include any ideas or thoughts and perhaps we can consolidate them and try to fight this.

OP posts:
lec0rnsillk · 09/10/2011 12:54

BruciesDollyDealer - can you provide the link to any research which supports your opinion

Thzumbiewitch · 09/10/2011 12:58

Brucies - that's not a "fact" - that's prejudice.

Dawndonna · 09/10/2011 13:02

Thanks Brucies, a lovely comment on my parenting skills, and knowledgeable too, please tell me where in rl you know me from. It also helps loads of people understand my dd.
For god's sake, get your prejudices and put them where the sun don't shine or get the facts, preferably not from the daily mail.

herbietea · 09/10/2011 13:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

tallwivghoulies · 09/10/2011 13:13

Brucies, you're talking out of your arse.

And to re-iterate another point, even people with the most severe, lifelong disabilities need to be reassessed for DLA. I used to work in a day-centre where this was a regular joke - 'Oh, they're coming to see if I've had a miracle-cure, been to Lourdes,' etc.

BatsUpMeNightie · 09/10/2011 13:14

I think my son has ADHD and he gets overstimulated and is frightened. Why shouldn't such families be entitled to a car?

It's the think bit in there that gets me I'm afraid! Massive and irrational sense of entitlement - why the actual fuck should you be entitled to a car? A car? Why? It's just taken my immobile elderly Mum nearly a bloody year to get a blue badge never mind a blasted car! She hasn't left the house in all that time but you want a bloody car for your maybe ADHD child?

cory · 09/10/2011 13:14

HappyMummyOfOne Sun 09-Oct-11 12:13:58
"Mobility cars should be a last resort for those who would not be able to leave their home without one. A child with ADHD doesnt need a car no more than a normal child, the money could be far better spent so I agree with the crackdown."

Have I misunderstood something or is it not the case that a child with ADHD/autism will only qualify for a mobility car if they are on the higher band of DLA mobility, that is if their disability makes it virtually impossible to take them anywhere by foot? It's not an automatic tick-box activity: you have to fill in endless forms detailing exactly how your child's disability would affect them in different situations and this has to be supported by a professional who knows your child.

My dd does not qualify for this level of support despite having a painful and sometimes totally crippling joint condition. But then, I suspect it is an awful lot easier to take her out on crutches or in a wheelchair than it is to go anywhere with a violent and/or escape prone teen with ADHD. We don't need a mobility car. Somebody with ADHD may well.

cory · 09/10/2011 13:21

And I love Harriet's argument:

"somebody I knew tried hard to get a statement"

"because they thought they would get a mobility car"

worraliberty · 09/10/2011 13:25

I agree with Bats and as an aside, I know at least 9 or 10 parents who tell everyone who will listen that their child has SN.

Until further conversations reveal it's just the parent who thinks it...but they continue to state it as fact.

So actually you never can really tell because there's nowt as strange as folk as they say.

WhereYouLeftIt · 09/10/2011 13:32

"[Motability] is the biggest fleet-management outfit in the UK. Mike Betts, its chief executive, earns £1.17million a year."
Now that is shocking if true.

Voidka · 09/10/2011 13:33

Disability cars are not handed out like sweeties, despite what you read in the Daily Mail its not true.

tallulah · 09/10/2011 13:37

I followed your link from one of your other posts (you really don't need to post in multiple categories for people to see it) and I'm wondering why a newspaper is allowed to publish such blatant lies. It all seems to be part of the campaign that has up-to-now been targeted at the public sector to whip up the ignorant into a state of uproar. I was going to comment on their site but it won't do any good.

My DS2 has ADHD. DD1, DS1 and DS3 don't. We were accused of being bad parents but no-one could explain why that only affected one child. If someone who "doesn't believe in ADHD" had borrowed DS2 for a day they would soon have changed their mind.

We have been claiming DLA for him since he was about 8. He is now 22 and his renewal has been turned down flat this year. The "reason" was that somebody at the DWP with no medical training decided that the support put in place by his university to help him access his course and keep him safe was unreasonable. Apparently being intelligent means he isn't disabled (WTF?!) Plus students have a "free and easy lifestyle" and don't have to do things at particular times!!!!! (You can imagine his university's reaction to that)

He has only ever had the lower rate mobility element. You only qualify for a car on higher rate, so I really can't see that thousands of people are in this situation. Contrary to popular opinion it isn't just a case of putting your name on a form and you get everything you ask for. You really have to jump through hoops. So if somebody is getting a motability car for their child with ADHD then they actually need it. (We don't).

lec0rnsillk · 09/10/2011 13:38

tallulah I agree - this seems to be a smear campaign by the government to label anybody who claims DLA as a scrounger

ThePosieParker · 09/10/2011 13:42

I do know a couple of people that got their child on Ritalin, but their goal wasn't a car it was to absolve themselves from blame as they were terrible parents who following a divorce wanted to get rid of the child.

I can't imagine thinking that these people were remotely representative of parents where children do actually have ADHD.

I note a distinct lack of facts and figures in this article, I am not surprised given it is the Daily Mail.

Thzumbiewitch · 09/10/2011 13:43

It's been going on for a while now though, this reduction in assistance to those in need. I know it appears to be all the new govt but I have a friend who works for a local council, her job is to assess and review all the care packages in place for those who need them - with a view to cutting as much as possible. She didn't realise that was what the job would primarily entail (the cutting, I mean) when she took it and she is quite desperate to change jobs again as she finds it a horrible task. This is just a continuation of the same. :(

Thzumbiewitch · 09/10/2011 13:44

Should have said that she took the job before the govt change and it is taking her a long time to find something with equivalent pay.

lec0rnsillk · 09/10/2011 13:44

posieparker - do you know in what circumstances their child was prescribed ritalin? You can't just pop to your GP and ask for it.

Voidka · 09/10/2011 13:45

The trouble is that its quite obvious from this thread that its working :(.

twinklytroll · 09/10/2011 13:48

I know of parents who have tried to get their child classed as having ADHD or similar and they were motivated by financial reasons, sometimes they have succeeded - although I don't know if that then secured benefits. I don't know that any of them got a car out of it, certainly not a rather vulgar range rover.

lec0rnsillk · 09/10/2011 13:50

twinklytroll - if they succeeded in getting a dx of ADHD, it would be because their child did actually have ADHD

ThePosieParker · 09/10/2011 13:56

They made stuff up about his behaviour, I think. He was very pushed away by both and played up a lot, he just needed time and to be valued. This was YEARS ago and I'm not sure it was such a known entity....

BUT. Just because I know one family where this happened I don't doubt the existence of ADHD or the potential nightmare it can cause for a whole family. I am so surprised that it's massively poo pooed by anyone really.

lec0rnsillk · 09/10/2011 13:58

but posie - to get a dx of ADHD the behaviour has to be observed across a range of settings. So were school making stuff up as well?

ThePosieParker · 09/10/2011 13:59

No, not way back then you didn't.

lec0rnsillk · 09/10/2011 14:00

why when was this? Confused

madhairday · 09/10/2011 14:01

Shocking article and the comments underneath have raised my blood pressure far too much, I really shouldn't bother.

Whoever said this was part of a smear campaign by the govt to label DLA claimants as scroungers is spot on, I think.

What's all this utter twaddle about free cars anyway? Motability lease cars to those who get high rate mobility DLA. The way the DM and others write you'd think they were jealous, yet you have to jump through several thousand hoops and be severely unwell or disabled to qualify for this.

The government is clamping down on anyone claiming DLA and is stealthily turning the public against anyone disadvantaged enough to need it. It's going for what it thinks are the easy targets - MH and autistic spectrum disorders. It's shocking, disgusting and is bloody terrifying.