18 year old unable to work/go to college - can she claim any benefits at all?

[sweetkitty]

DD1 has just turned 18 and very sadly has very bad anxiety and depression which has made her virtually unable to leave the house. It’s a horrible situation where a once bubbly sociable girl is a shell of who she once was. She’s had a little CAHMs counselling but is now passing over to Adult Mental Health and we’ve been told there’s a love waiting list. We have decided that we will go private but obviously that isn’t cheap but it’s our little girl and we would do anything we could to help her.

My question is - is there any support or benefits she can claim as she’s unfit to work. We obviously support her but she can’t get a job or go to college/uni? I’ve had a look around but it’s all a bit confusing. Even if she could get say £50-60 a week that would pay for a counselling session and give her a bit of money to buy herself some thing encourage her to get out maybe? Although part of me would worry it might mean that she has no motivation to get better if she sees it as money for doing nothing (sorry my mind is all over the place right now).

It looks like PIP may be a possibility

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/pip/

Pip and UC, I would have thought.
But with UC you have to go to the job centre until you have an assessment about capability for work, I think.
The more evidence you have for a claim, the better.
A diary with all the support she needs for the different pip categories is helpful both to send with the application and to talk about how you're impacted at the assessment.

My child gets Pip. You need to fill in the form for the worst day. It is quite draining and depressing doing the form with your child. But worth doing it. Good luck.

Universal Credit - just over £60 per week. This is means tested . Should also try for PIP ( Personal Independence Payment) which is not means tested and is payable in addition to Universal Credit. PIP could be anything from around £24 to £155 depending on how severely disabled your daughter is assessed as being. It would be a good idea to get advice from a Benefits Adviser before claiming. If you phone your local authority,they should be able to give you contact details for local Benefits Advice centre.

Would she be up for doing something from home - eg a coding course?

This is not good advice. You do not fill out a PIP form based on the worst day. You can describe a worst day and how many days a worst day happens but please don't write the form as if every day is a worst day. You need to meet the descriptor for 50% of the time for it to apply. There is no point just describing for example that J cannot get out of bed due to anxiety because this is a worst day, but it might only happen once a week, because if then on the day of assessment they are able to get out of bed because it's not a worst day, you will just look like you've exaggerated things and it won't go down well. It's best to provide as much medical evidence as possible.

If she makes a claim for Universal credit she needs to declare her health condition and hand in sick notes. After 29 days of handing in sick notes then she should be sent a form to complete and then will have a work capability assessment. until this assessment has been done and a decision made she may be asked to participate in some work commitment phone calls or visits. You should be very firm if it is going be detrimental to her to have to do this and should request phone appointments if this is easier for her.

Thanks I’ll have a look I’ve heard all the horror stories about UC and how hard it is to claim etc she would really stress about having to go for an interview and talk about how for she is for work. Some days coming out her room and downstairs is too much The anxiety has really messed with her head and her thinking I don’t know if she could cope with a course right now we have looked she’s talked about childcare/teaching.

Uc would bring in money the quickest. PIP can take literally months to get an award although it is backdated to the date you make the initial application if successful. For an under 25 she would get £235.31 per month and then after assessment and assuming she was found not fit for any kind of work ( it sounds like this should be the result), it would rise by an additional £354.28. It can take some months to get assessed though. I hope she gets the help she needs.

If she does fancy a go at coding, or learning about the ideas behind data science, Datacamp is free this week or next week I think.

I'm autistic. When I claimed JSA (precursor to Universal Credit), I went to the job centre and it was so obvious that my anxiety was too high at the time to seek work, the job centre staff suggested I claim sickness benefits instead and transferred me to the disability advisor.

The Jobcentre don't have a good reputation either but if it's really clear that you can't work (I cried through most of my appointments) they will help.

If she has mental health problems of that severity then she would likely qualify for the 'limited capability for work or work related activity ' element of universal credit. They can do assessments and interviews over the phone or you can attend with her. We went through it with my step son a few years back, he was on the increased rate for nearly 3 years before a reassessment put him in the 'limited capability for work' category, where the work adviser helped him with his CV etc and he's now working again.