Help! Child Benefit stopped

[JassieT]

Hello all, My son has ASD ADD Severe Anxiety and a severe sleep disorder. He is in Year 11 and should have taken his GCSEs this term. He is one of the oldest in his year being an October baby. He has an EHCP but despite 1-1 support has not coped well in school most of his life. All through year 10 he struggled and in November (2017) of year 11 he was found on the ground of the school car park, he could not speak he was shaking, dribbling and could not move. CAMHs signed him off school as too ill to attend and The school asked for the Medical needs team to get involved so he could keep some education and because the government require that all children of statutory age must be educated even when they are ill and so they come in 3 times a week which is all he can manage in his condition. His next school for SEptember (Post 16) has not been named on his EHCP yet because the LA are trying to find him a placement that will be able to meet his needs and it needs to be a special needs school. He is still on roll with his current school and they have regular contact with Medical needs team and us, trying to get him well, keep learning and help him back to school, but now Child benefit has been stopped because they say he has left full time Education and home education less than 12 hours a week is not a qualifying Educational Placement. How can this be right? I am on my own raising him and because he needs so much day and night care I am unable to work so I depend on my CB and my CT Credits. If this also stops I will not be able to afford to Pay my mortgage or bills and could lose our home. I am feeling really afraid for our future.
Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks in advance smile

not sure about the child benefit but have you thought about applying for PIP ( personal Independence payment) for him if he's over 16 and has significant difficulties ?

I think you should ask in the Home Education section also. Lots of home edders come up against this at 16 but home education is classed as full time education but child benefits don't always understand it, depends who you get to speak to. I know your son is classed as Education Otherwise rather than Home Educated as he's still on roll and receiving education from LA but maybe in terms of child benefit it's the same. They'll be others that know more than me on the home ed bit , also home ed Facebook groups answer these queries all the time. If he's working on subjects/curriculum on the other days he hasn't got his tutor then he's probably doing full time hours anyway.

Thank you so much for your reply's. It is hard enough dealing with a child with disabilities but to have to deal with the level of serious mental health where your child goes missing and his 1-1 finds him in that state. I still cant talk about it without crying. But now , if thats not enough, my financial support could now end because of it. I will post in Home Ed to see if anyone there might know.

So sorry to hear what you and your DC are going through.

Sorry, exact details not to hand, but when one of mine was out of education due to MH, I found a sort of loophole, that said , if DCs health was preventing them from attending education, but there was an intention for them to return when their health improved, that I could go on claiming.
It was on some official/gov website.
As the DC in question would have returned to education, if their MH improved, I felt justified in continuing to claim, even though their current MH made their educational attendance impossible. Something about a temporary interuption to their education.

Best wishes for you both.

You need to call child benefit centre. My sons benefit automatically stopped when he left high school but they started it again when I rang them up and informed he was off to college

Thank you so much Dancing Ledge. You are right and it gave me the hope to speak with Citizens advice today. They told me that all statutory age pupils that are being educated by the Medical Needs team are classed as full time education but too unwell to attend and therefore his CB should not be stopped until the last day of August after his 16th BDay. They also told me that if he cannot attend in September he should be able to get another 6 months due to temporary interruption to their education. I called Child Benefit and it has been reinstated and a note added that there might be an interruption in September if he is not well enough to go by then. I did not sleep last night and today I can relax and focus on getting my Son well. Thank you so much to everyone for their reply's.