Family Fund Gardening Improvement Grant

[stressedoutmamm]

Hi, I have a 4 year old son, severe ASD, non verbal, no communication, is still in nappies, can’t do anything for himself. He’s in receipt of DLA high rate care and High rate Mobility. We have recently moved into a social housing 3 bedroom home. Previous tenant was elderly and the garden was massively overgrown. The housing have chopped everything down, including the trees so it’s just wasteland now. The garden is quite large as it’s a corner house. What’s left isn’t even soil, it’s like a mixture of soil, clay, bricks and stones, even pieces of glass embedded everywhere. Problem is my DS is most calm when he is playing outside but with the state of the garden I’m unable to allow him out there, even with my supervision it’s just too dangerous. The housing said they are unable to do anything more with it.
I was informed by his support worker at the local council who said family fund give grants for garden improvements. However, this is a garden overhaul and would cost in the region of 8K! I’ve had 3 different landscape companies to give me quotes and all the same price near enough. This is to have artificial grass installed. We need artificial grass because he eats grass and soil amongst other things.
is it worth even applying or will I be laughed at because the work needed is astronomical?

Has anyone ever applied for something so large before?

TIA

It is unlikely you are going to get anywhere near £8k as a grant. However, it is still worth applying as it’s better than nothing. There are other potential routes too e.g. it may be possible to get a DFG.

Is it possible to fence off part of the garden and just make that bit safe? It should cost substantially less, so you are more likely to get funding.

So the current contribution is £800 max for garden works. It is available for owned homes and council/HA rents. I don't think they will cover things that are the statutory l duty of the council but they may not mine as long as you can afford the whole job with their help. Anyway, we all know how difficult getting anything done via the LA can be.

You need to send your quotes and confirm you can pay the rest, and then they request receipts of payment a couple of months later. As I imagine you don't have £7200 just ready to go, maybe you could figure out the most important aspect (e.g. grassing and fencing off one area, just replacing fencing or maybe clearing everything out to make things safe), get a smaller quote for that and ask for the £800 towards that!?

We had £800 towards removing a raised deck which enabled my son to abscond over the neighbours fence (as it was high above ground level) and putting a patio there instead. It cost £2300 and we saved the rest before we applied so we knew we could then go ahead and get it done.

It has been a huge help, life changing for our son and us as a family. I hope you can figure out a way to use the support available 💖