To be surprised that getting higher rate care componant for PIP doesnt get free school meals

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Was looking into it ready for when ds1 starts school. Thought it was odd, given that so much of the 'care' part focuses on food prep, that a food benefit that already exists isnt given to disabled parents who are already assessed and acknowledged to struggle when it comes to feeding themselves?

But then again, disabled parents dont exist do they. So i guess i shouldnt be surprised really.

So in that case, aibu to think parents who recieve higher rate care (or ever any rate care!) should be included in the fsm list?

Nor is PIP.

How do your dc eat now, when they are at home with you? Surely if your dh prepares things before he goes to work, then he can continue to do so.
I presume there is a way of preparing meals when dh is at work?
I obviously don't know your circumstances, but you dh is working, so you have to consider your family income when deciding what you need to pay out for, rather than looking purely at your benefits. Benefits are adjusted if the family income is higher, so that's how you need to think.

Child tax credits and child benefit can be used to pay for meals on the days that your DH can't do it. If he is working and managing to pay all the bills, then you do have money available to feed your child.

This is one of many reasons why children need two parents. Maybe you'd be better off arguing that half of the cost of your child's food at school should be paid for, seeing as only one of his two parents is on disability benefits. I'd still disagree, but would at least be able to take your point more seriously.

I'm not surprised but YANBU to think we need to make more accommodations for disabled parents. Maybe the FSM for children of disabled parents with slightly different criteria or would that be too complex? Answering my own questions but not everyone is able to access DLA/PIP because they have trouble with the forms or simply because the are denied it for some ridiculous reason.

I would write a letter to the local council and ask. Explain your financial situation and the hardship trying to provide a meal entails. Do you have a family social worker you could enquire about this with?

Your PA funds are they direct payments? I wonder if theres any flexibility in increasing these to cover the lunch making need and hence making the job more attractive if it were an hours assistance pre school.

I'm sure there's a certain amount of discretion sometimes with these things. I'm also confident that its necessary to ask and ask again to make sure you've covered all the avenues of possibility for getting support. Its supposedly a way of weeding out those without sufficient need but actually is desperately unfair on also weeding out those lacking energy to fight their way into the relevant system.

Unless people take the time to make these applications and outline the issues nothing will change.

If the council come back that their hands are tied then forward the correspondence to your MP and WAG.

Do your local school offer a free breakfast club? My DS's were at school in Wales until last year and enjoyed toast, cereal, yogurt and fruit each morning as a second breakfast. Followed by fruit, milk and yet more toast as morning snack. It was hardly surprising that come lunch time they'd not eat much.

As a final try I'd contact the school direct and ask if there are any discretionary funds you could apply to for assistance with school meals.

I don't think FSM is the answer, but perhaps the PIP ought to include a component for parents of young children if they need help with caring for their kids. Though this particular issue isn't really an issue in England, I guess, given that infants will be getting school meals anyway and older kids can make their own.

I do wish that they had raised the threshold for FSM for all kids, instead of providing free food for rich families with kids in KS1! DD is too old to benefit now in any case, but we never struggled to pay for school meals when she had them, and it would have been absurd for the state to subsidise us instead of helping people with genuine need.

Why don't you pay for school meals? That's got to be easier than paying someone to make a packup?

No dh doesnt prepare food for us before he goes to work. Everything we eat for lunch is bought ready, ready mixed pasta etc, things that literally just need to be served or sometimes microwaved to warm (so long as its nothing fiddly or heavy). Dinnertime is usually something from the freezer, but again, it has to be something that requires no prep. Sometimes i can put ingredients together (so long as they are all preprepped) to make something like curry or spag bol, but that hugely depends on my not fainting while i do it.

Our diet is not what i would like it to be, as we rely so much on convenience food. I've put on loads of weight.

DH already helps me to shower and dress, does all cooking when he is home, and all of the taking kids to nursery etc. He does pretty much all of the housework on his days off. All he does is work and look after us. He is now suffering from depression himself and i'm not surprised. So no, it really isnt as simple as him just making a couple of sandwiches before he goes out to work.

When dh isnt here, the children have to help with my care, or it doesnt get done. Most of the time it doesnt get done. But no, they should be making their own lunch too. As if their life isnt shit enough having a disabled parent.

Child tax credits and benefit are already being used woowoo, for the normal child costs that everyone has, i'm not saving them to one side and complaining.

Mis, thanks for the suggestions! :) i do get direct payments, i asked whether they were flexible and was told i have to use them as arranged. Half hour breakfast, half hour lunch, half hour dinner. I cant use them together. So im not surprised noone wants to do it.

That doesn't seam right about the direct payments.

read this. This is how its been explained to me by my family social worker - it puts you in control so long as you account for every penny and have an audit trail of service hours used everyones better off than council provided services

I don't claim to have any expertise in this. Our situation is my eldest has Autism, youngest complex needs and my middle son suffers under the other two's needs. I applied for direct payments so that I could spend time with my middle son and he could have friends to the house without his elder brother getting very distressed by it. Its been indicated we should get 4 hrs/ week given our situation and need. I was specifically told I can save it and use it one day a fortnight or have several days concurrent support during school holidays. The monies all have to be spent in a specific way but when they're spent is when we need it as a family at our discretion. I thought that was the whole point of direct payments.

Surely if this flexibility need can be demonstrated getting someone in three times a week 3.5 hrs a time, it would be easier to recruit someone (great SAHM job if during school hours) and they could do all your food prep for you to your needs so its all fresh food ready to heat / plate/ eat. (In the case of lunches and cold meals). They could chop fruit into salads for you that with the right storage containers could last two days till their next visit.

All you can do is ask. If the answer is no ask why!

I did ask the bloke who visited to go through direct payments and he said no, but I'll try approaching it with my sw herself on monday morning. My sister is moving back to our hometown soon and is out of work, so in the meantime she will be able to help out. I'll try my cousin as well, now shes out of school, she might even be able to do it long term. :)

If your sisters not working/ earning under the £100 would carers be an option too? I know money and families can be a bit tricky but it could sweeten the pill on those bad days when I think in all families there are tensions.

I hope I haven't offended saying about asking when you already have. Its just sometimes it seams you have to ask the same question to the right person at the right time to get the right answer. The system isn't made to be user friendly.

Good luck

Right do you have adult social care involved, home start extra support from nursery you need help you shouldnt need to pay it for yourself your children are under 5 you could get a homestart volunteer avfew hours a week you need help and support

Is there a support service for your medical condition

beyond if you're sister won't be living with you, you are entitled to use your direct payment to pay her - the rules are it can't be used to pay resident family members. It's not a brilliant idea IMO but it can be useful in getting a more regular arrangement with a family member or them to do more.

No worries mis, any help is fab. Sister as carer is an idea i hadnt thought of, will see what she thinks.

Mrsjayy, ASC are involved - they cant work round dhs shifts, which is why i have direct payments. Still waiting for occ therapy referral, should be in the next month or so (i chased it up a few weeks back)

Homestart dont cover newport anymore, i've tried them :(

There are a couple of charities for psa and eds/pots, but nothing that offers practical help. That I've found so far, anyway.

Xboys "Do people think in theory than parents who receive DLA for their disabled children should also get FSM I,m not trying to be contentious just curious ds2gets MRC DLA as he is autistic and has learning difficulties he will be entitled to the FSM under the new infant school thing from September but afterwards?"

I don't think it's a should - and it's not something that would be widely taken up, if it was. DS2 has never had school dinners because there's only something he'd eat on the menu twice a week and even on those days he wouldn't get enough calories. DS1 has a wider diet, but still struggled to find something acceptable to him every day and often spent the afternoon hungry and angry. He also struggled with the dining hall. He's at a non-maintained specialist school now and meals are included.

I agree that the FSM thresholds are ridiculously low, though. £10-15 per week per child is still a lot to find on a modest income. (Until this year, meals have been subsidised in our LA, at £1.50 per day, but the subsidy is having to be taken away to fund the FSM for all under 7s scheme, so that will hit parents of older kids quite hard)

Thinking about it, could i get sister on carers allowance and cousin on the direct payments (assuming either are interested), so i have less time alone? As useless as it makes me feel, it'd be so much easier having someone here.

So many services have been cut I think having your sistervas carer would save you money in the long run, contact young carers for your children if there is one near they could support the children

A selling point to your sister is that it could potentially take her out of having to do compulsory work experience thingies and would count towards her pension NI years. I would outline a few things you'd like help with though like washing/ ironing, maybe vacuuming weekly and washing windows once a quarter or something (just because if you have even a very informal outline of what help you need there's less room for falling out down the line).

Beyond

Would it work if you could get someone, via your direct payments, to come and spend 90 minutes all in one go, in the morning, preparing food for the day? They could prepare breakfast and the kids' packed lunches and do the donkey work for preparing dinner - preparing veg and salad, putting meat into marinade in dishes that can go straight into the oven at the appropriate time, even setting something up in a slow cooker such as pork shoulder for pulled pork, etc.

Or, if you have the freezer space, they could come for 45 minutes, in the mornings, to do breakfasts and lunches, then come for a longer spell during the week to help you with some batch cooking, help you to roast a chicken or boil a ham that you can all pick at for a few days etc.

It's crap that your in this situation.

Only practice help I can suggest is that your dh preps lunch bags for the week with stuff that keeps and stores them in the fridge, you could try - yogurt, carton fruit juice, some fruit, soreen snack bars, dairylee Dunkers, individual wrap cheese or cheese sticks and crackers, cherry toms, sugar snaps peas, breadsticks ect