Disabled parents and school

Zoelikesjam

Right. Just to clear a few things up for you.

DLA, HRM is for you to use to get out and about, or for you to pay for taxi's etc. The use of this payment towards a car/insurance/mot is again to help you get out and about, or to make life easier for you mobility wise. It is perfectly fine for you to get a motability car with this payment if this helps your husband(IE your carer) get you to and from hospital apointments, to and from the shops, to and from activities enabling you to get out of the house. If you can't drive and would normally stay indoors whilst hubby is at work(because you can't get out of the house without him), therefore you would not use the car, if you choose to let your husband use the car to get to work then that is totally your choice. A couple of things you need to be aware of though.
How do you know for definite that you will be being awarded HRM? This isn't something you would know until you are awarded the claim. Just curious as I know personally how difficult it is to get. There is a very fine line between having very high needs mobility wise but still only being entitled to LRM and having enough needs to qualify for HRM.
Are you aware you have to be awarded 3years+ to be able to get a motability car? This is something they(motability) often neglect to mention! If you, like many others, have your claim re-newed yearly or once every 24months you will not get a motability car. Again this is not something you will know until your claim has gone through and you have been awarded.
One of the big issue's here, and one that I think Glaswejen was trying to get across before you took offence, are you aware you will not be able to claim for a tax disc? Sorry, you are well within your rights to claim for a tax disc(IF you are awarded HRM) HOWEVER and this is a HUGE however, You, and only YOU are allowed to use that tax disc. Meaning, unless you are in the car, or your husband is coming to pick you up, it is not to be used.
Therefore, if your husband uses it for ANY other purpose, such as popping to the shops, going to work, or going to collect the children from school, this is illegal and he will be prosecuted. The tax disc is solely for your purpose and unlike many people think, it is not like the mobility car, which can be used by anyone you say regardless if they are driving you around, or going somewhere that doesn't involve you.
You need to be fully aware of this, and remember it as both you(for allowing it to happen) and your husband(for using it for his own gain) will be in serious trouble with both the police(for have invalid tax) and the DVLA.
I must say, I do agree with other posters on this, that you should be using your DLA to get the children to and from school, and not so your husband can get to work. Your husband is paid a wage, and that part of that wage should be used for travel. Don't get me wrong, I am not attacking you or having a go, before you percive it that way, I am just stating what I feel.

Now, onto the issue at hand.
Are you aware, that if you do get help from social services(which is about as difficult to get as blood from a rock, and as likely) as your husband works you will probably be asked to pay for it, just like people who are disabled and need a carer are asked to pay for that if they/spouse earn or have savings?
After going round and round in circles I finally annoyed someone enough to be told that even if they did supply transport I would be expected to pay for it out of my DLA, and that it would cost me far less to arrange my own transport. As someone else mentioned, you would also still need to go with the kiddies. If this isn't a problem for you, then I would advise you to use your DLA to pay for a taxi. Speak with a taxi firm, let them know that you need them for the school run every day, and could you negotiate a special monthly price if you pay one lump sum every month. Then phone another taxi firm. Then another, until you get the lowest price. If you are still determined to have the motability car, you would have to pay for this out of the Care component of your DLA.

As far as getting help from the education authority goes, they won't supply long term help(I know it differs authority/authority but this is what I was told, so apologies if I am wrong). What they will sometimes supply is short term help, until you get something permanent into place, or become well again(for those that have suffered accidents etc)
As I said above, our social services were a complete waste of time, and when they finally did offer something, it would have been silly to pay for this, when it was cheaper for me to phone a local taxi firm and pay their prices(and that would have been before a discount was added!) as it was, this wasn't an option for me as I can not leave the house without my carer now. When my eldest started school, my disability meant I was still able to use my sticks or frame, so my eldest clung to my toddler, and we jumped into a taxi(which was paid for out of my DLA, and I was on LRM back then) to do the school run. 18months ago, after a serious fall, followed by numerous amounts of surgery, that is no longer possible. I now get probably two days a month when I can use my sticks, and not my wheelchair. When this happened, we tried in vain to organise something that we could afford and that was suitable. Before anything was sorted I had to send my children to school in a taxi. Alone :eek: You can imagine how sick to my stomach that made me feel, but we had no other option, apart from to keep them off school(which I would have been fined for no doubt) and I didn't want their education to suffer because of me, god knows they suffer enough socially. Luckily after doing this twice, the headmaster(for the rest of that week) ferried them about, and got the schools family support worker involved.
She arranged for a child minder to take the children to and from for 6 weeks initially(extended to 10 weeks after review) and also(bless them) two days a week at a nursery for our little one.
This gave me massive breathing space to sort out and arrange our own 'transport'
As it was, I decided to use my DLA and stick with the child minder, to be fair, she wasn't much more than I had previously been paying in taxi fares :eek: and it meant(not that I could anyway) I no longer had to drag all three children in a taxi, in absolute agony, arriving home with a fractious toddler and sobbing from the pain.
Personally I think this is going to be your best option.
Are you aware you might be entitled to child care costs? I presume you receive Tax credits? Normally you can get some of you child care paid for if you are a single working parent or when both parents work. However, if you are a couple and one parent works, and one parent is disabled, you are classed as both parents working(in effect) and therefore can get help with paying a registered child minder to do the school run. There are restrictions but that might be a possibility.

I do know how you are feeling, having been there myself. I hope you get some help, but you might have to resign yourself to the fact that you might have to pay for that help out of your DLA.

jetta_wales

I will certainly look into the tax disc issue and buying one ourselves is certainly no problem. The fact that a car will be used for work also is all that some seem to care about and would aparently be happier if we weren't able as a family to be out of the house at all except at night and since my girls go to bed at half 6 that's never except maybe an hour a day in the depth of the winter months. Frankly I don't care for that at all as we are otherwise a very active family I just need to limit my exposure to light as much as possible. My partner is in his last year of an apprenticeship his wage doesn't go very far with a mortgage plus £200 a month for flipping car insurance (the result of all these no win no fee companies). Even my social worker fully agree'd that I should have help with getting the girls to school it's just getting somebody to agree that it's their jurisdiction per se that is the problem. Hence why I honestly don't care if some random strangers here who like getting their backs up take issue with it.

DLA has never accounted for wether or not you care for children and it is never intended for that if I spent all of my mobility component on taxi's twice a day (it wouldn't actually be enough though) then I would have none for my mobility needs at all and we would be faced with giving up the car all together as has happened in the past and that was a very bad for me as it was summer and every time I tried to go anywhere on public transport it ended in tears and hiding my face in my partners chest as he wrapped his arms around my head for relief from the sun. I can't go back to that.

As for entitlement because my dissability is sight related I come under the new rule change from April the first, they have asked for our CVI's (documents that register us as blind and give our measurement of sight) if your sight is below a certain level then you are entitled and mine is well below it.

sunnyone

jetta_wales wrote: »

I will certainly look into the tax disc issue and buying one ourselves is certainly no problem. The fact that a car will be used for work also is all that some seem to care about and would aparently be happier if we weren't able as a family to be out of the house at all except at night and since my girls go to bed at half 6 that's never except maybe an hour a day in the depth of the winter months. Frankly I don't care for that at all as we are otherwise a very active family I just need to limit my exposure to light as much as possible. My partner is in his last year of an apprenticeship his wage doesn't go very far with a mortgage plus £200 a month for flipping car insurance (the result of all these no win no fee companies). Even my social worker fully agree'd that I should have help with getting the girls to school it's just getting somebody to agree that it's their jurisdiction per se that is the problem. Hence why I honestly don't care if some random strangers here who like getting their backs up take issue with it.

DLA has never accounted for wether or not you care for children and it is never intended for that if I spent all of my mobility component on taxi's twice a day (it wouldn't actually be enough though) then I would have none for my mobility needs at all and we would be faced with giving up the car all together as has happened in the past and that was a very bad for me as it was summer and every time I tried to go anywhere on public transport it ended in tears and hiding my face in my partners chest as he wrapped his arms around my head for relief from the sun. I can't go back to that.

As for entitlement because my dissability is sight related I come under the new rule change from April the first, they have asked for our CVI's (documents that register us as blind and give our measurement of sight) if your sight is below a certain level then you are entitled and mine is well below it.

you cant pay for the tax disc on a motability car, its not allowed.

If you need care or any other social services help you are expected to pay for it and your DLA comes into the equasion, severely disabled people can pay out all their HRC and more to just pay for the care that they desperatly need, personally I though about problems like this before I had my son, I couldnt before I had my daughter since she was 3 when I had the accident but for my son I had taken years to work everything out why didnt you?

You cant expect everything for nothing, you claim to be getting HRM from April and at vertually the same time you want free help to take your kids to school because you WANT the HRM to go elsewhere but that money is to pay for help outdoors for you and if you want both you will have to find the money from elsewhere in your budget.

jetta_wales

Oh so now I shouldn't even have had children lol. And what help I get is not for you to decide actualy but it does amuse me that you talk as though it is.

jetta_wales

One question I forgot to answer earlier was that my condition can never improve so both mybsister and myself have always had an indefinite award.

sunnyone

jetta_wales wrote: »

Oh so now I shouldn't even have had children lol. And what help I get is not for you to decide actualy but it does amuse me that you talk as though it is.

everyone, even you can have kids but its irrisposible to have them without thinking about how you will cope as a disabled parent, thats what grow up, intelligent people do.

I know all about paying for help and how the financial assessments work, you dont so Im talking from experiance unlike you because I have paid out huge sums to make sure that myself and my kids are safe and well, money that we budgeted for.

sunnyone

jetta_wales wrote: »

One question I forgot to answer earlier was that my condition can never improve so both mybsister and myself have always had an indefinite award.

And?

I had a lifetime award thats now indefinate as do tens of thousands of other people, yore point is?

Its all a moot point now because no matter that Ive had my award nearly as long as youve been alive we will all get reassessed from 2013 onwards but I have no worries that my high rate care/high rate mobility will change because Im so severly disabled that I need care 24/7, I cant even stand never mind walk so my HRM is also safe.

jetta_wales

sunnyone wrote: »

everyone, even you can have kids but its irrisposible to have them without thinking about how you will cope as a disabled parent, thats what grow up, intelligent people do.

I know all about paying for help and how the financial assessments work, you dont so Im talking from experiance unlike you because I have paid out huge sums to make sure that myself and my kids are safe and well, money that we budgeted for.

You do like to make an aweful lot of assumptions don't you? I simply don't care about your perpetual desire to criticise and judge as if you actually enjoy coming here to do that and I'm not surprised that you are still here and still doing just that.

I am happy to converse with those who can do so with civility but you have far too much spite for that.

blue_monkey_2

Wow, you sound like you are such a victim!

How have you coped for the last 2-3 years since she started school. Why is it only a problem now you are getting extra money?

You constantly bleat on about 'people not caring' that you cannot get out of the house but you already have a car so you clearly can get out of the house and you do go out as a family so you can go out as a family so the emotional blackmail stuff is not really working. You THINK it is about that, it isn't. It's the fact you expect the taxpayer to fund everything for you when you are already in receipts of handouts that should be paying for it. YOU are making that choice not to get that money anymore but you still want more.

We have young children in bed by 7pm so we do not go out in the evenings either - please don't act like you are making some sort of personal sacrifice and are hard done by. It's the sacrifice you make when you choose to have children!! It's what ALL parents have to do when they make the choice to have children, to give up nights out for a few years. Disabilities or not!! I think it is irresponsible to take your kids out in the evening on a school night anyway!

My son has disabilities and my husband could not come away with us when we needed to have work done on our house so I paid over £1000 for someone to come with us for 3 days so he could have 1:1 care as we could not be at home.

sunnyone

jetta_wales wrote: »

You do like to make an aweful lot of assumptions don't you? I simply don't care about your perpetual desire to criticise and judge as if you actually enjoy coming here to do that and I'm not surprised that you are still here and still doing just that.

I am happy to converse with those who can do so with civility but you have far too much spite for that.

Last time you were sent packing from here, the same will happen again because you are not a nice person.

I am severly disabled but Im a resposible parent who knows that I cant have my cake and eat it, my husband has always worked very hard so that he could have the expensive cars that he likes because he understands that my HRM is to help me, If I needed to pay to make sure that my kids got to school safely I would have done and not expected the tax payers to subsidise it.

I know that you will be back to say they are sending a rolls royce and a royal nanny to transport your kids, thats the kind of sad person that you are