Carer's Allowance - stunned

ceegra

how do they get away with £1.44 hrly, when min wage is over £6.00

my hubby cares for me and i really feel for him he has no money to speak of,

i get inc and dla at high rate

i get help all round the clock through direct payments but have to pay half of my care component to do this

we stuggle and where ca we go we are not penionable age yet i,m 55 and hubby 59

having real probs with ppi at mo some have paid up but one group is being a pain

love u all
cee

meema

Just bumping this thread to see if we can get some more signatures on the petition! Anyone intending to go to the protest this month?

onetomany

OMG IM ONLY 760 post link on facebook

meema

I know!! There is a facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=42278622295

but it seems even most of the people who joined aren't going to the march. The problem with this campaign is that the people it affects most are people who are unable to take time off from their caring duties. It's not the kind of issue you become aware of until it affects you directly.

novelli

Lady_K wrote: »

A member of my family gets carer allowance for her 12 year old son who has adhd. She was not working so did not give up a job for this, she gets the same amount of carers allowance money as someone would for looking after a person who needs total care. I know it can be difficult having a child with adhd but the care she has to give him is nothing compared to what some people have to do that care for a person day and night.

If they do sort this out I think it there should be different levels of carers allowance tailored to the amount of care they have to give the person.

walk a mile in a parents shoes who cares for an adhd child and your opinion may change. :rolleyes:

PolishBigSpender

Lady_K wrote: »

A member of my family gets carer allowance for her 12 year old son who has adhd. She was not working so did not give up a job for this, she gets the same amount of carers allowance money as someone would for looking after a person who needs total care. I know it can be difficult having a child with adhd but the care she has to give him is nothing compared to what some people have to do that care for a person day and night.

And this is the problem with ADHD as a medical condition where benefits are concerned. I accept and recognise that it exists as a medical condition - however, given the subjective nature of it, it wouldn't surprise me to see an explosion in benefit claims from the work shy part of the UK population.

It would seem that a diagnosis for ADHD effectively allows the mother of a badly brought up child to remain on benefits until he's 16. This is frankly ridiculous - and yes, I completely agree that the amount paid should depend on the amount of care actually needed and given.

It seems ridiculous to me that the UK will pay the aforementioned work shy 'chav' to sit at home and 'care' for her child that has ADHD - which in reality is simply a badly brought up, badly behaved child. Yet the person who is home 24/7 caring for a bedridden relative, or 24/7 caring for a severely disabled child will receive exactly the same amount. Complete and utter nonsense, in my opinion.

(not that I'm saying your family member is a chav!)

Dray_2

woodbine wrote: »

Its even worse for those on income support as the carers allowance of £50 per week is counted as income(thereby reducing I/S by £50 per week)and replaced by a premium of around £27 per week,effectively almosy halving the carers allow.

I can confirm that. And remember, by claiming Carers you are agreeing to care for the person on Middle or Higher rate DLA for at least 35 hours a week. So that's errr.. what? £0.77p per hour. And to get a 'home help' around Sheffield has just gone up to £14.00 per hour. Sheesh... Cheers Woody.

boo304

Polish,

I think your post highlights people's attitudes to 'unseen' disabilities. While anyone can 'see' the behaviour of a child with ADHD, I don't think they realise how hard things can be for that child and their family, and how isolated children with these kinds of difficulties can be.

Please don't forget that a (sometimes more than 1) medical professional has to verify what the parent puts on a claim for DLA/Carers allowance. And also, to be eligible for Carers allowance, you have to have been awarded DLA at middle rate, which means you must have proved how much care you provide to a child.

Re your comments about living on benefits until the child is 16, I assume you are talking about single parents who are on benefits? If you look at the government's new initiative for getting single parents back to work when their children are 12 (7 from 2010). you will see that the same rules apply to parents of disabled children.

While I agree that there should be different levels of carers allowance, and that some people who care are doing it 24/7 for a pittance (thanks to the state), lots of medical conditions are variable or subjective, and it doesn't mean that people don't suffer.

pipkin71

boo304 wrote: »

Re your comments about living on benefits until the child is 16, I assume you are talking about single parents who are on benefits? If you look at the government's new initiative for getting single parents back to work when their children are 12 (7 from 2010). you will see that the same rules apply to parents of disabled children.

As far as I am aware boo, parents looking after children in receipt of middle or higher rate care are not required to look for work under the same rules as single parents.

starchild1972

It would seem that a diagnosis for ADHD effectively allows the mother of a badly brought up child to remain on benefits until he's 16. This is frankly ridiculous - and yes, I completely agree that the amount paid should depend on the amount of care actually needed and given.

It seems ridiculous to me that the UK will pay the aforementioned work shy 'chav' to sit at home and 'care' for her child that has ADHD - which in reality is simply a badly brought up, badly behaved child.

I have a husband with M.E., a daughter with Epilepsy and a son with aspergers/ADHD.
My son has to have someone with him all the time during the day and when he wakes at night, my daughter needs someone with her at night and my husband needs physical care.
I have fibromyalgia.

I get carers allowance, my husband is allowed to claim carers for our daughter (as all she needs is watching. We cannot claim carers for our son as he does not yet get DLA as at 5 they deem him too young and it has been suggested by his specialist that we wait until he is 7. It is doubtful he will ever live anywhere else but with us.

I am also part-time self employed earning a huge £15 a week. Self employed because I cannot face the rigmarole of claiming income support and the humiliation the jobcentres put you through when you attend the work focused interviews. Neither do we claim housing benefit or council tax benefit, we struggle but survive.

Anyone who knows aspergers/autism/adhd knows what it is like to live with an explosive child.
Have you ever had a 4 yr old rip a door of it's hinges and try and throw it down the stairs and that child not even knowing why or recalling that they did it?

If it was down to parenting then why only 1 child out of 4?
Why are my other 3 neuro-typical?

Autistic Spectrum (which includes ADHD) kids would have been locked away many years ago as mentally !!!!!!/unstable. it happened to 2 of my male cousins who, at the ages of 47 and 52, have finally be re-diagnosed as Autistic and Aspergers with ADHD respectively. That was after years of misdiagnosis of manic depression and prescriptions of lithium!
My Uncle and Aunt were fab parents, otherwise their daughter would have been the same surely?
Going by what you say Polish, that it is bad parenting, all my kids should have problems but they don't. I find that comment extremely insulting.