We’ve just spotted this post on Facebook. It was written by a parent carer who we’re keeping anonymous, so we are deliberately not linking back to the original post. This is how the PIP assessment process is affecting parent carers, as well as claimants. actually been feeling suicidal today(wishing me and my two autistic […]
via The PIP Process Is Affecting Parent Carers Too — Same Difference
It raises particular concerns over rates of obesity, mental health issues and mortality among the young.
The in-depth report, from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, emphasised that poverty was at the root of many child health problems.
UK health ministers said money was being invested in services to help tackle health inequalities.
The report looked at 25 health indicators, including asthma, diabetes and epilepsy, as well as obesity, breastfeeding and mortality, to provide a snapshot of children’s health and wellbeing.
It said there had been huge improvements in child health in the UK in the past 100 years, but since the mid-1990s “there has been a slowing of progress”. This has left the UK falling behind other European nations in a number of league tables.
For example, in 2014 the UK had a higher infant mortality rate (of 3.9 per 1,000 live births) than nearly all comparable Western European countries.
Infant mortality ranges from 3.6 in Scotland to 3.9 in England and Wales, and 4.8 in Northern Ireland.
read more here: http://linkis.com/www.bbc.co.uk/news/oQl4L
inisters have abolished the civil service’s once high-profile child poverty unit, prompting warnings from MPs and charities that political focus on the issue has been abandoned by Theresa May.
The admission came in answers to parliamentary questions, which revealed that the team set up under Tony Blair’s government has been subsumed into the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), after seeing its staffing halved in three years.
Dan Jarvis, the Labour MP whose questioning uncovered the closure, said the decision ran contrary to the May’s pledge to govern on the basis of social justice and equal life chances.
“When the prime minister stood on the steps of Downing Street, she promised to fight the burning injustice of being born poor and lead a government that worked for everyone,” he said. “Having a country that works for everyone requires a government prepared to both help those who fall behind and stop people being disadvantaged from the outset. Theresa May has no unit, no target and no intention of eliminating child poverty.”
There were 3.9 million children living in poverty in the UK in 2014-15, according to DWP figures quoted by the Child Poverty Action Group, amounting to 28% of all children in the UK.
read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/20/fears-after-government-abolishes-civil-services-child-poverty-unit?
Pupils with additional support needs are being left behind as funding cuts hit staff numbers. Stuart Jacob from Falkland House School. Scotland faces having a “lost generation” of children with additional support needs if funding cuts continue, experts have warned. The Scottish Children’s Services Coalition said more than a fifth of school pupils were recorded […]
A boy born with half a heart, who had benefits used to provide him with 24-hour care taken away on his birthday, has won a court appeal against the decision.
Eight-year-old Ben Gamble was born without a left ventricle meaning his heart only has one pump instead of two – making it difficult for blood to be pumped around his body.
The Whitley Primary School pupil has undergone five heart operations, has been resuscitated twice, and will need a transplant if he is to reach adulthood. Ben, who refers to his chest scars as his ‘zip’, also faces his next operation around Christmas time.
On Ben’s eighth birthday government officials at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) took away a large part of his disability allowance after concluding that the fact he can walk 50 metres at a normal pace means his incurable condition is not as severe as previously assessed.
The callous nature of the benefits cut was compounded by the fact the letter arrived on Ben’s birthday and referred to him as “James”.
The decision to withdraw the disability allowance had a knock on effect on other support payments, including some from Coventry City Council, leaving the family facing a monthly income shortfall of more than £700.
read more here: http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/victory-boy-half-heart-decision-12185157
Research from the Manchester Institute of Education shows the dangerous conswquences for children in the households affected by the Bedroom Tax.
……..We conducted a small scale exploratory project, interviewing staff at 20 schools, housing associations and community organisations, and 14 parents impacted by the ‘bedroom tax’. In the interviews we asked about what people thought the impacts of the policy on children and their education were, if any.
Our analysis indicates that children are perceived to be impacted by the ‘bedroom tax’ in a number of ways. Some of these impacts relate to basic needs. For example having less food in the house and the heating being on less often.
One mum told us “I mean a loaf of bread isn’t going to keep me dry or keep me warm, or keep them warm or keep them dry. So you’ve got to pick that and that’s the hard bit”.
Parents we talked to also told us about the difficulties of children of significantly different ages (e.g. 6 and 15) sharing one bedroom, and the problems this raised for getting homework done. They also reported an increase in their own mental health problems, which they suggested impacted negatively on their children. Children were reported to worry about the possibility of moving.
Beyond the impacts which were seen within the house, participants also reflected on the impact of the policy on local communities and the feelings of particular groups of society being persecuted.
Representatives from schools also told us that hungry children were struggling to settle with their work, which may potentially means impacts for children beyond those in households directly impacted by the policy.
Read more here: http://www.walkthetalk2015.org/news/system-makes-us-depressed-impacts-bedroom-tax-children-and-their-education
………. Child poverty is the highest in parts of London, Manchester and Birmingham. The local authorities with the highest proportion of children in poverty are Tower Hamlets (43.5%), Manchester (40%), Westminster (37.7%), Islington (37.7%), Newham (37.5%) and Birmingham (37%).
read more here: http://www.welfareweekly.com/almost-half-of-children-living-in-poverty-in-some-parts-of-the-uk/
Heartless Theresa May today refused to help grieving parents who can’t afford to bury their children.
She palmed off calls to make money available to pay for child funerals, saying it was up to local councils to stump up the cash.
The proposal would cost just £10m a year – £4m less than the government spends every year to send the children of diplomats to private schools.
read more here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/theresa-refuses-help-grieving-parents-9180706
In a little council house in Birkenhead, Steve is panicking over how he’ll find an extra £304 rent money a month. He has just days to magic up an answer. If he can’t, he can guess what will happen. “Eviction. Come the end of November, I won’t have a roof.” As a single parent, Steve won’t be the only one slung out. His four boys, aged from three to eight, would also lose their home and probably be taken from their dad. “I’d be fed to the dogs.” Everything I’ve tried so hard for …” – a snap of his fingers – “Nothing.”
It’s not a landlord doing this to Steve; it’s our government. It’s not his rent that’s going up; it’s his housing benefit that’s getting cut. And he’s not the only one; on official figures, almost 500 households in the borough of Wirral face a shortfall of up to £500 a month.
From next Monday 88,000 families across Britain will have their housing benefit slashed. They will no longer have the cash to pay their rent. Among all those whose lives will be turned upside down will be a quarter of a million children. That’s enough kids to fill 350 primary schools, all facing homelessness.
Those figures come directly from the Department for Work and Pensions. Plenty dispute them, which is unsurprising since DWP officials keep changing their minds. Some experts believe the number of children at risk could total 500,000.
This is the biggest benefit cut that you’ve never heard of. The newspapers will waste gallons of ink on Candice Bake-Off’s lipstick and Cheryl’s apparent baby bump. But about a government policy that could disrupt hundreds of thousands of lives, there is near silence.
So allow me to explain. From next week Theresa May’s government will extend the cap on household benefits. Poor families in London will not be allowed more than £442 a week. Those outside the capital will be cut to £385 a week. In some areas the cuts will be brought in straightaway; in others with a slight delay. But in the end, families above the limit will be hit twice over. First, they will be pushed further into poverty. And, like Steve, their housing benefit will be docked, so they will be left scrabbling just to make the rent and keep a roof above their heads.
How those families will manage is anyone’s guess. When Steve opened the letter at the end of July he had a “panic attack”. All that went round his mind was one question: “How the hell am I going to pay this?” Then came what he calls “a depressive state” that lasted nearly two months. Now he bottles it up, for the sake of his boys. “When they’re not around, that’s when I cry. When they’re out at school, when they’re asleep: that’s when I break down.”
It’s the fear of losing the boys he fought so hard for custody of that haunts him most. So worried is he about a social worker taking them away that he requests a false name.
Like many of the families that will be hit, Steve’s options are very limited. He can borrow from his mum, although she’s hard up. He can try to land 16 hours’ work a week – and has already been giving out his CV – but not too many employers will be able to fit around his school runs and meal preps. Or he can ask Wirral council to top up his rent, by filling out a complicated form that asks for proof of his weekly spend on everything from cigarettes to toiletries. And that would only cover him for a few months.
Even before next week’s cuts, Steve is already bumping along the bottom. He has one jumper and one coat to last him the entire winter. He sometimes gets by on a single bowl of cornflakes a day. Anything spare goes towards the boys. But they don’t get fresh fruit or veg, subsisting on frozen meals from Iceland.
The three-year-old comes into the kitchen for a drink, and as Steve opens the fridge, I can see it contains nothing apart from a half-full bottle of milk. The house is empty to the point of desolation: no shades for any of the lightbulbs, none of the usual family photos or decorations.
George Osborne’s benefits cap was always a rotten policy that played well in focus groups. But when introduced in 2013, it hit a relatively small number of poor families in high-rent London. And, some on the right would whisper in the ears of biddable journalists, the poor really had no place in the world’s biggest property bubble. The cuts that start next week will be a step change. They will hit low-rent areas such as Wirral and Darlington. They will render family homes rented out by housing associations “financially toxic”, according to the housing expert Joe Halewood: tenants will no longer be able to afford them, and housing associations can’t afford to leave them empty. And they will rip through the budgets of already cash-starved local councils, who will now have to find emergency accommodation and cash funds for displaced families.
read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/child-poverty-theresa-may-housing-benefit-cuts
More than 300,000 poorer children will be hit by a new benefit cap coming in next week, a new study warns – with some families set to lose more than £100 a week.
The Government is being urged to rethink a dramatic lowering of the controversial household limit on social security payments, or face a devastating surge in poverty and homelessness.
The lower cap – £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside the capital – was announced by George Osborne last year, but will not come into force until next Monday, just weeks before Christmas.
Now research by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has found the numbers who will be affected is significantly higher than the Government expects. Pressing ahead will fly in the face of Theresa May’s promise, in her Conservative conference speech last month, to “make society fairer for families”, it warned.
Terrie Alafat, the CIH chief executive, said: “Our analysis shows many families could be one redundancy or a period of ill health away from being in this situation.
“This could have a severe impact on these families, make housing in large sections of the country unaffordable and risk worsening what is already a growing homelessness problem.”
And Imran Hussain, director of Policy at the Child Poverty Action Group, said: “A lower benefit cap is crueller and more damaging for children.
“The only way to escape the cap is to work a certain a number of hours but, as the Government itself recognises in the rest of the benefits system, this is practically impossible for those with children under school age. They are trapped with nowhere to go.
Benefit tales 