Tax credit and free school meals

[temmy99]

Just wondering before I go and embarass myself whether if you are on tax credit, your children may be entitled to free school meals, its just that it does add up to a fair amount each week.

What is that supposed to mean?

DHSS doesn't exist, btw.

If you read the post carefully, you would have deduced that was who I dealt with when I first got Incapacity Benefit. In those days they did not give you advice on how to get back to work. They could have suggested I apply to a University, to do a course as a Social Worker.

But Social Work is a work-based qualification - if you aren't fit to work, you wouldn't be fit to do the course. That's just a fact. You can't say 'oh well I'd be ok to do social work unpaid while I train, but not ok to do the same job for pay.'

Youn cannot say that. are you a Disability Employment Adviser?

Blimey Lucinda if you can work then go and switch to JSA. Why are you waiting for someone to give you advice? You appear to be well enough informed to skip that bit.

Just google BA Hons Social work and you will get a sense of how much work placement you do. It is just like a full time job.

I could have worked 14 years ago, but the government agencies failed to offer me any support and no advice, and no counselling.

LucindaCarlisle - I spent 3 years doing a B.A. Social Studies course, along side students who had chosen to do a B.A. Social Work course. 3 years. That was 3 years listening to them bitch about the strain, physically, mentally, and emotionally, of the social work placements. I think I can say that

It is gruelling, and the students can't get in the swing of it, because as soon as they are comfortable with the setting, they move on. Then the next setting is completely different, with completely different expectations, systems, workload, etc.

I know that the nursing course I did (intensive 2 year post-grad pre-registration) was also very intense.

The health screening prior to the courses are also rigorous - if you aren't fit to work, you aren't likely to get on the course in the first place.

What advice did you need? If you are fit for work, and can do so, do it. If not, carry on claiming IB. If you want to study, look up a course. Why did they have to tell you you could do it?

Shineoncrazydiamond you have a way with words...

They hadnt even told me the nature of my disability. You see Doctors to be assessed but they never give you a diagnosis, So they never tell you what jobs you would be capable of doing. They do not enable you to find work.

LucindaCarlisle - my honest advice to you, as the mother of a child with a brain malformation, diagnosed after many assessments, many tests, and having had many appointments since then, is this:

If you do not know the nature of your disability - ASK.

You must know your symptoms? You must know whether they limit you in movement, etc, or mentally/emotionally, etc.

Disability is a legal term. If you have a significant condition which affects day to day activities and is expected to last for more than 12 months you have a disability and are covered by the DDA.

If you have been on IB for 14 years, I suspect that you have quite a medical history. Has it honestly never occurred to you to ask what the name of your condition is?

It is all a self self self. Start your own thread that I can hide instead of hijacking everyone elses.

Everything you are saying is complete bollocks. Do a subject access request if you bizarrly dont know what is wrong with you.

Lucinda - did you not have any idea of what jobs you could do without being told? A diagnosis wouldn't help surely; all sufferers of a particularly ailment are not the same. Do you need spoon feeding or what?

Or is this just a wind up?

Plus surely you submitted the initial medical evidence and filled in the claim form............

onedietcoke. It is you that is talking bollocks. If you do not know the circumstances, then please keep your nose out.

From what you have said and the procedures and help available it is bollocks.

No one at DWP would withold disclosing your medical condition or records if requested in writing.

Have you ever walked in to a job centre or to a DWP office asking for help?

You do not know how the procedures work in the real world.

Yes Yes and Yes in many different roles and like I said after over a decade administering benefits I do know how these things work. I have also been on the recieving end, so have many friends and family members.

You are only getting angry with me because I am challenging your version of events because I have the knowledge that it doesnt ring true.

When DHSS administtered Invalidity Benefit, which government department ran the Job Centres?