Supporting disbaled people unsustainable?

[SantasMooningArse]

here

I hate this sort of uncertainty. I have trained part and full time for seven years now alongside two disabled kids to get to the point where I was hoping to train in social work in 2013- but if DLA vaniushes it will be unaffordable. I feel we have lived up to every Tory ideal, battling redundancy, my DH's illness and the boy's SN with constant battles to get back on line, and now I think I might just give up after all- can;t train until thenas no childcare means DH must be working from home to care and he dosn;t qualify until then, and we will need to move and cannot do so with the SNU realistically until 2013 (a SW trained where we are in Wales cannot practice in England but we need to get back to family badly for support and help, both for them as they age and us as we try and fit in work).

Working in tesco woudln't ever cover the huge costs of disability childcare.

I acknowledge that this is a left wing article, there's a thread on this in SN with a less reactionary letter from teh NAS C&P's to it, but is this how big society was meant to work? Sorry disabled people, there's no money- saldy when it comes to ds3 there's no cure either- can I never afford to die then? Will there be any care left for him?

There are draft proposals. That is the point....
here

^ To mark this change, Disability Living Allowance will now be known as Personal Independence Payment.

The government also wants to base the Disability Living Allowance on a person?s needs and the problems they face, rather than on the nature of the disability itself.

Other proposals for reform include:

?simplification: the current system has grown too complex and its purpose is misunderstood

?assessment: there is currently no independent assessment for entitlement and no way of checking that an award remains correct

?employment: DLA can act as a barrier to work rather than enabling people to live independent lives ^

I can't do italics. Sorry.

Here is the white paper and consultation pdf.

Responses must be in by mid-Feb I think.

It is worrying. Apart from anything else, if you have a motability car and then have your DLA removed for not being disabled enough, you'll have to find the money for your car plus tax and insurance yourself for the remainder of the term. I doubt many people would be able to do that.

I was thinking yesterday, we should protest, but I can already imagine the sneered comments of, "well if they can get out and protest..."

byrel here are some things that concern me

• they want to take aids and adaptations etc into account, this worries me as they may (most likely) decide that having aids/adaptations means that someone is on an equal footing with a non-disabled individual.

• they are talking about "as part of the administration of the benefit [they] could signpost individuals to other support", which again sounds like they will say, well you have this, therefore you don't need financial help

Actually the other thing that occurs to me:

DH is a haemophiliac so his disability comes and goes (although he will never have anywhere near the same range of movement as a 'normal' person). When he has a bleed he cannot move at all. On a good day in the height of summer, he can move comparatively easily. Generally he can more or less walk short distances with some pain.

The parking at the station (to enable him to get to work) and in our local town is dreadful. He can manage to get to work and go into town apart from work by having a blue badge. The Council is awful about granting blue badges and only does so because he has an award of mobility DLA for life.

If he can no longer get mobility DLA (quite possible), it is unlikely that he will be able to renew his blue badge and will then have real difficulty getting to work. The restrictions on blue badges and loss of mobility component will have a huge impact on the ability of disabled people to have a normal day to day life.

The consultation period is too short!!!

Kaloki - I was thinking yesterday, we should protest, but I can already imagine the sneered comments of, "well if they can get out and protest..."

In the same vein, Nadine Dorries MP thought one of her constituents couldn't be that disabled as they could tweet so much

You've got to be kidding me?! Oh FFS :(

Santasmooningarse were you sugessting that people don't work due to depression/mental illness are scroungers and have no morals?

Hardly, I meant that some people use it as an excuse! Trust me I know how bad it can get from the night I sat here whilst the police tried to find DH after a suicide attempt. He SHOULD have packed in work. It took 5 years to get him on a vaguely even keel.

I do however get pissed off that people who use anything related to disability to fraudulently claimed benefits are considered as having anything at all to do with the rest of us- they don;t, they are NT fuckwits who are ripping off everyone. IME people who have depression or any other disability DO tend to dispaly morality through a desire to work as long as they possibly can and are genuine when they can no longer. the moral free idiots are the ones who get us a bad name by trying it on.

The operate the signposting thing ehre via SSD: what it menas is if they can tell you to join the NAS befriender scheme (three year wait and no match) then they have covered the isolation part of the provision. Likewise carers needs are covered by 'Oh they run a carers group in . So rather than helping at all, they just give a list of charities that cannot afford to help and that's their job done.

Anyway- an email received from MENCAP is attached below.

Dear Mark George,

The recent debate on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) was a huge success. Over 700 of you contacted your MPs, who came out in force at Westminster Hall on 30 November. It was a clear sign to the government that it is making a huge mistake by removing the mobility component of DLA for people living in residential care homes.

However, the government is still refusing to change its position and we need your continued support to make sure disabled people are getting a fair deal. The government has proposed this cut on the basis that the needs of people in residential care homes are met by their local authorities. But this is simply not true. The government needs to acknowledge the impact of cutting this benefit on the lives of disabled people.

During the debate, Minister for Disabled People Maria Miller said: ?We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the independence of disabled people living in care homes is maintained, and that is our prime responsibility.?

If the minister is serious about following through with this commitment, she must help to reverse the decision on DLA.

Please email Maria Miller now to tell her what you think of the cut to DLA.

Yours sincerely,
Esther Foreman
Campaigns manager
Mencap

----------------

santa I thought that would be the case with the signposting. :(

I was thinking yesterday, we should protest, but I can already imagine the sneered comments of, "well if they can get out and protest..."

What about asking the students/unions/other activists to "Represent a disabled person" (basically adopt a disabled person for campaigning purposes)? We sickies sign up to a website, give a pic to be printed out, they turn up to the demos for us...

It's asking a lot of the volunteers, but in the current climate people are demonstrating anyway. How about, when they're on their own demos, they "take us along" in placard form and make a little side show each time? Line is "we have to represent them, because the govt are picking on those least able to defend themselves."

By the way, hello! Wandered here through Google a while back (toxic parent), liked the cut of the MN jib and have been lurking since! Am right up there with SirBoobALot's absolutely furious and shit shit shit scared about what's being done to the sick.

Actually so frightened I can't spend too long each day even thinking about this, so humble apologies that I probably won't be very communicative... :(

That's not a bad idea thisisanicecage

BTW, Kaloki, been following your landlord / hubby's illness saga with slack-jawed horror. I think you've been incredibly courageous, and have been silently willing you the strength to keep going ? not much bloody use when silent! So have a raucous GO KALOKI GO now!

I nrewfuse to address this beyond the basics until after Christmas; DH think (he does have a history of paranoia!) that it's the tories trying to ruin Christmas for claimants- maybe not LOL.

I've just volunteered for an ASD charity and their cut watch scheme, and can see no reason why I cannot protest becuase I am not disabled, my children are: I have never claimed any limit on what I can do when the boys are at school.

Riven- I think they mean that DLA on top of other benefits mean that the person has no need to work as they recieve enough money through welfare to sustain a reasonable standard of living.

Its not a view agree with but I think that is the point they are trying to make.

Riven it's even worse than that. According to the consultation document:

Chap 1 §17. A significant proportion of DLA recipients believe that DLA is an out-of-work benefit. Applying for DLA is widely linked with the process of leaving or being out of work due to disability. A common assumption among people receiving DLA is that entering or returning to work will lead to a review of their circumstances and a loss of the benefit.

Chap 1 §19.
The benefit can act as a barrier to work
Evidence suggests that DLA can also act as a barrier to work, when it should enable people to lead independent lives, including having or getting a job. DLA is widely perceived to be an out-of-work benefit and receiving it appears to reduce the likelihood of being in employment

In other words, we've pretended it's an out-of-work benefit so often that Real People believe it.

So to solve that problem, we'd better destroy the benefit.

how about a new system where those who can never work remain on DLA (with sense used in making decisions) but people who could work if given a chance can be palced on a PIP and given X hours in work support on the job plus a PIP allowance? that being absed in part on whetehr anyone can get them a job (permanent only) given that the big barrier to work for many is the unwillingness of an employer to hire?

OK, I'm feeling more communicative than I'd expected now my blood has stopped boiling.

SMA, if my health improves I hope to work freelance at home for, say, 5 hours a week. This is by far the most plausible way of me ever earning anything again.

I would have no employer to administer an allowance (suggested on the parallel thread) or verify that I was working. I would also not be earning my living, because I couldn't work enough hours.

I would still, however, need someone to take work documents, etc, to the post for me and occasionally attend meetings in person. These are the sort of costs DLA contributes to (but may not fully cover), as well as the basic ones of hygiene, food, etc.

How does your proposed system work for me?

Actually you're not far off what we are doing- Dh works from home too, 16 hours a week.

I would suggest that people with a disability who can work fewer hours have an entitlement to Tax credit top ups at a lwoer elvel than the current one (and Government is raising 16 hgour limit to 24 shortly). That would take a lot more people in under the system. It would IMo apply to carers too- certainly if our plans worked out longer term then dh's temporary part time business could be our ticket out of dependency.

I would also being training in under this system for the same reason- ATM it doesn;t seem to be about rewarding efforts to find work that may be small but require huge strides from the person making them, but about creating a big in / out of work divide and pulling up any ladders that may help someone to get off of dependency.

I'd also like to see dedicated start up support for disabled people becuase quite often self employment IS the only option I don't think ds1 could ever work in any team or under anyone but he has a great craft skill and hopes to be self employed- it's the only option I think.

(BTW I didn't mean an employer administered allowance- I meant more along the lines of a work support mentor to ehlp someone cope with employment and amke a success of it, funded by a specialist NFP or charity provider. Employer allowances create extra burdens on employers which won't help employment rates anyway but isnlt going to help anyone)

personally i'd rather see it left as it is but they've done such an effective job of demonising dla that I don't think it could happen.

There should be a higher dependency level yes

but they won't leave DLA alone which is why we have to input into any consultations about whatever does replace it. Likewise CA, which they are 'thinking about'.

riven they won't raise it,
just lower it for others iynwim