Disabled Student with Child - Benefit entitlement?

salfordgirl

As others have said, if thats your view of addictions, they "choose to spend their money continuing their addictions" are you really going to be a mental health nurse????

I think you will find a lot of your clients have dual diagnosis, which will include drug/alcohol misuse.

Are you going to simply dismiss them because they "choose" to carry on with their addictions??

If so, good luck with getting a job, think you will need it

Spamfree_2

xylophone wrote: »

He's delivering /sorting the post?

So if he's out sorting the post, how is he giving her care?

I'm sorry to sound rude, but if I was in need of mental health help I wouldn't want the op to be helping me. How can she be so bad at home, but be able to switch back to a normal functioning person for the work hours?

salfordgirl

Seems like she choosing the hours of which she needs support (which obviously add up to more than 35 hours per week!!!)

If she is going to be a mental health nurse she seriously needs to change her attitude.

As for her being an expert in benefits,im sure she is, which is why shes choosing the route she is doing.

salfordgirl

to Op how would you support someone who has a mental health condition, but also an addict.

Would you write them off, cos they "choose" to be an addict, despite their mental health problems?

FBaby

OP it does very much feel like your DLA entitlement had been based on the needs you required when you were in crisis rather than now. Surely if you partner is a postal worker and works mornings you are able to get up, get ready, and get to work every day safely. That does fit with the super you claim to need from him. Just one point if you manage to do your full time course without his support at uni and he stops work to look after the baby, someone around you might be feeling very much the way most posters have done here and decide to report you with the risk of you losing everything. Do keep that in mind.

bestpud

I'm afraid none of this stands up under scrutiny.

I contacted two universities about doing a nursing course with a mental illness (it was a few years ago but I doubt the advice would change much) and was told it wasn't a barrier per se but I would have to convince Occupational health that I was able to carry out the role.

I am astounded you've been accepted on the basis of the info you've shared here.

Someone has been selective with the information they share with different departments!

I'm actually wondering whether the nursing department at Bristol Uni should be made aware of this thread... I'm sure the service uses in the area would be pleased to know it had!

Experience can be a benefit in any role but not if it makes you judge people with different problems, OP. I guess it would be the same as a midwife having had easy, text book births with no pain relief, judging mothers who need pain killers. Personal experience can be a double edged sword!

poet123

I think people have been reluctant to post on this thread for several reasons. I know I have. Obviously, anyone with MH issues deserves immense credit for trying to get through them and trying to build a better life for themselves.

MH support is under resourced and under appreciated and it is vital for so many. That said, there is a fine line between support and allowing someone to go down a path which could have so many repercussions on others. If the OP is as ill as her benefit entitlement would suggest and if she needs the level of care she outlines, then clearly she is too ill to do paid work in that field with all the responsibility for life that could entail.

There are two strands to the issue; the payment of benefit and the future plans.

To me it is either or, I can't believe that she can get herself together enough to work as she supposedly does, but that for the rest of the week she needs the level of care her entitlement dictates. As a former DHSS Fraud Officer this simply doesn't sit right with me, nor does it fit with my personal family experience of MH issues. Additionally, if she needs that level of care I simply cannot see how any university could knowingly accept her onto such a course.

I have to say this smacks of giving different people different information and of neither side knowing the whole picture. The two halves of this whole do not sit together.

Add a baby into that mix and the picture alters again.

I actually think this is quite a worrying thread unless it is simply a wish or an aspiration the OP has which is not quite as developed as it seems from her OP.

princessdon

To study doesn't mean to work - she may be capable of getting a degree but not work as a Nurse.

I do agree that this situation is ludicrous! And it is the 2nd thread of it's kind over the last few days (other sitaution was the person who needed care left with 2 young children whilst the carer went off to study). It makes a mockers of DLA - and the automatic right/passport to other benefits like carers. To me a carer is those that really do care for their relative/charge. Ie they need "care" not a reminder to set an alarm, or accompany them on a shopping trip. It dilutes the work of "real carers" that are physcially and emotionall exhausted at the end of the day. How can the govt treat somone who say looks after their husband after a stroke and needs 24 hour care with physical demands the same as someone who needs a reminder to set the dinner table?

People are being paid (and passported to benefits like carers/IS) for what is part of being a couple - not a carer, a couple.

I also disagree that because someone is a carer their partner (fit and well) can claim IS on the back of them. Totally crazy!

BUT - It IS allowed, and as such I personally feel you can't blame those who do what is permitted.

I have taken a copy of this thread (and 3 others similar) and sent to my MP to raise the issue and I completely agree DLA needs to be a LOT stricter and CA looked at separately and not reliant on DLA, but OP isn't doing anything wrong (unless they lied or over exagerated to the DLA or Uni).

poet123

princessdon wrote: »

To study doesn't mean to work - she may be capable of getting a degree but not work as a Nurse.

I agree that is true, but again you have issues which come along with that.

Should the NHS be giving out bursary payments to someone with no real prospect of carrying out the role? Is it fair to either side? By accepting her are they not setting her up for failure if she cannot get registration at the end of it? What MH repercussions for her might that have?

It is a very fine line, and you cannot claim to fall indisputably on one side of it for part of the week and indisputably on the other side for the rest of the week and reap the benefits from both sides.

Somewhere, the information is inaccurate.

evenasus

princessdon wrote: »

I have taken a copy of this thread (and 3 others similar) and sent to my MP to raise the issue and I completely agree DLA needs to be a LOT stricter and CA looked at separately and not reliant on DLA, but OP isn't doing anything wrong (unless they lied or over exagerated to the DLA or Uni).

If only the powers that be actually did something about all the benefit misuse/fraud claims that go on.