To think this will just increase pressure on the poorest/vulnerable?

[Zebedee55]

Sanctions increased, putting more (often unrealistic) pressure on parents, carers, and sick/disabled.🙁

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/universal-credit-sanctions-hunt-budget-b2298836.html

@Moonicorn if you think depression = 'feeling sad' then you haven't learned anything rrom your experiences.

The benefits system, was over hauled going from too generous to too extreme, and now needs to be reasonable in the way forward.
i have a long term medical condition which will not improve, so I get some help, also early retired and I know I’m unfit for work.
Heard someone at the bus stop complaining they had to have proof for disabled bus pass, I replied if they qualified no issues, I suspect years ago it wasn’t the case.
The system will cost money to overhaul

I’ve learned plenty. You have to want to get better, and work at it. Too many people get a diagnosis, sack off work and lie in bed with the curtains drawn. They don’t even try the basics of self care. Recovery was hard but I got there, you have to want to get better - if you don’t why should everyone else fund you forever?

There is only one that picks up kids from my DC's school. Obviously has a large waiting list too. I imagine many areas are the same.

The mental health stigma lives on…

@Moonicorn I've worked in mental health in a non-clinical capacity for two decades. I've learned a lot. If you think wanting to get better is all it takes, you have truly not learned anything. There are people for whom the currently available medications and therapies do not work. This is called 'treatment resistent depression'. I'm really surprised that you do not know this.

Just because you 'got there' that doesn't mean everyone else can. That is the kind of simplistic thinking that we get from the government.

@Moonicorn depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain, it's a disorder and for some people it's life long.
Do you really think it's a case of wanting/ not wanting to get better?
That's very ignorant of you.

Good . Since time immemorial society has been based on a sense of contribution and personal responsibility. We have strayed so far from that we will end up with less people contributing than those who do .Im also fed up with the term vulnerable applied to those whose bad choices determine their circumstances.
The only people who should be on permanent benefits are the mentally and physically disabled and they should have their benefits massively increased to be able to live a good quality of life .

I'm not remotely embarrassed. Just because you've had severe difficulties doesn't mean that other people don't also struggle. I hope there were people who offered you more empathy.

@Moonicorn what a staggering lack of empathy. And one you feel rather proud of it seems.

'You have to want to get better' from the mental illness that saps your desire to do anything at all. Yep, it's always that simple.

I completely agree with this. I have depression and WFH during Covid nearly finished me off. I’m now in a new job where I work in an office and benefit from the social interactions and keeping my mind busy so much that I think I’ll be able to come off my anti depressants once I’ve been there for 6 months (occupational health told me not to for 6 months plus it’ll be summer then and I have SAD).

It’s fantastic that childcare will be paid in advance rather than arrears and there’s no reason that people with school/ nursery age children can’t use this benefit to pay for after school clubs etc.

Everyone that physically can work should be. I’m sick of hearing people say that they want to work but don’t because they’d lose their benefits or they wouldn’t be able to take their children to their activities (I have genuinely heard this one as an excuse 😵). Benefits are not a right, they’re there to help people who genuinely can’t work and those that need short term support while job hunting.

If I said what I actually want to say I’d be banned.

Apparently your in-patient stay was for a fucking empathy bypass. Glad to see it was a success.

What’s the alternative? You stay in bed and get paid for forever? I can see the value in being signed off work initially, but it isn’t unreasonable to say it can’t go on indefinitely while other people’s money is used to support you.

@BenCoopersSupportWren Well said!

I just don’t believe that ‘mental health’ can be used as an excuse to live off the taxpayer for years. It has no pathology, unless the person is bordering on sectioning you only have their word to take for it. As PP said there’s no magic money tree. There has to be a line somewhere.

Don't blame employers for not paying a living wage when under Gordon Brown the government decided to top up everyone's earnings so half the country could drop their hours.

I’m of an age where we had to pay our own child care so we only had children that we could afford. Then my husband worked days and I worked nights, we didn’t get eff all from the government. People have it far easier nowadays, they just don’t know it!

As someone else with severe mental health issues I found going back to work helped me significantly. The structure of the routine, the social aspect and the extra money all combined to being extremely beneficial to my wellbeing.

I've been honest with work and they couldn't have been more accomodating if they tried!

As moonicorn says, you have to want to get better, and I do. Treat it like physiotherapy, the more you put in the more you get out. Take medication when the pain is too much and have rest breaks as and when required.

Successive Tory governments have had 13 years to change that - why haven’t they?

Nobody wants to be on benefits. And if it's that good. Why don't you go on them yourself?

@Moonicorn Where did you do your psychology degree? Tell my husband his mental health issues don't exist. I'm reading your replies out to him and he is devastated. This man who worked as a teacher for nearly 40 years had a psychotic episode out of the blue. He's stabbed himself through the chest with a kitchen knife, he's attempted to jump off a multi storey car park and thinks there are government spies watching him through our alarm sensors to name just a few issues he has. Are you really telling me his illness doesn't exist? Benefits are not given out easily, ask anyone who has claimed them. You can't just lie in bed all day, there are assessments and criteria you have to meet. I hate this bashing of the mentally ill.

There's a massive shortage of after-school places, regardless of affordability... so 'want to pick my kids up' actually means have no choice but to pick my kids up because no after-school care, no job that actually fits into the available after school care times and no local support network.

Too many entry level jobs expect full flexibility but there you pay a fortune for flexible childcare (which is limited to 7.45 to 6 at best). Add in limited public transport options (I have to leave my local city by 1.45 to make pick up at 3 even though it is only a 30 minute journey with an annoying hole in the timetable) and working around childcare is not easy unless you're still local to your parents and they're not still working full time as well!

And yes, he wants to get better, if only it was so simple!