To apply for night jobs?

[TheLovelinessOfDemons]

DS 14 is in a children's home, but his social worker is starting the process of him coming home. I'm looking for a second job because my current one can't give me anywhere near enough hours. I'm on Universal Credit, but they expect me to earn upwards of £952 a month. Would it be unreasonable for me to go for night jobs even though when he comes home I'd have to switch to days? I'm widowed and DS has ADHD and a history of not going to school and going missing. How long does the parenting assessment process take?

TIA.

I thought you only got the £70 odd a week as a single adult with no dependents? Can you still claim as a working parent if your child is in care?

The single person allowance is currently £316:98 if under 25 and £400:14 if over 25. If entitled, you get housing entitlement as well as personal allowance. If under 35, it’s shared accommodation rate for your area, if over 35, it would be 1 bed rate. If in private rented housing you can Google LHA for the calculator for your area - you need postcode/know the local authority that covers your area, how many bedrooms you’re entitled to and it will give you the weekly rates for every group (shared rate, 1-4 beds, maximum is 4 bed rate) to work out the monthly amount you divide the weekly rate by 7, multiply that by 365 and then divide by 12 to get the monthly rate. If in social housing you get the full rent covered but, if had spare bedrooms, you have a deduction of 14% for 1 room
more than needed or 25% if they assess you having 2 or more extra bedrooms.

Entitlement rates go up next month (with first increases seen in May payments for some claimants, others don’t get it till June) by approximately 6% but there is no annual increase for local housing allowance.

In answer to your question about whether you can claim as a working parent whose child is in care; you would be entitled to the amounts above but could not claim anything for the child until they are back in your care. Then you would have a deduction made for earnings which would be 55% of your take home wages after deduction of tax, NI and pension. Many single people find their full time wages wipe out their entitlement

You can claim Universal Credit if you're a single adult. It has nothing to do with whether you have children or not. I earn around £80 a week, my rent is around £1400 a month, so Universal Credit pays my full rent plus what it considers that I need to live on, which is around £600 a month. I don't claim for my DS.

He woukd have to ve in receipt of at least MRC DLA ,for her to be a carer

I'm applying for everything, both full and part time.

I'm applying for everything, the night jobs would be for now, then switch to days once I've completed the assessment and found a 2 bedroom flat.

I'll obviously apply for DLA once he's with me. It's so difficult with ADHD though, because they think of being a carer as physically caring for him, which he doesn't need. The form really isn't geared to NDs at all. I feel like I'll be pressurised to look for other work when I need to be at home making sure he gets to school and comes back home.

By switch to days do you mean apply for a new job doing days? Seems silly to go for a job that you will only have temporarily

I currently have a zero hours job and I can change my availability with 2 weeks notice. In the jobs I have experience in it's very easy to change availability with notice. Currently my availability is 10am - 12am, Sunday- Friday. Also, DS won't be coming to live with me until I find a 2 bedroom flat, it could take longer than most people are in jobs these days.