Billions to be cut from welfare services

You were fortunate to have a good husband. Mine walked out.

GSM I gave up any hopes of a career to keep my child with a disability out of care which meant we had to sell our home and rent for a good decade, life isn’t straightforward for lots of people. I could have easily been someone who was never able to work OR I could have just put my disabled child in care earlier. I believe ALL political parties rely on family and spouse carers to save money for the economy

I’m lucky I had a good husband though and I kept our family life stable so he could further his career. I guess even though we’ve struggled we’ve had ‘luxury’ too

I know people don’t have the choices I have as i know them and have met them.

Thanks rafichagran. You understand, I had absolutely no choice - I would have lost my home, custody of my child to my abusive husband and my career - my only means of income. Strong drugs and my supportive parents enabled me to keep my child and my career, but I lost my home in my divorce. (My barrister described my husband as a bastard and he wasn’t wrong.) No matter, my child was and is the most important person in my life,. The effort of going to work each day is indescribable, but there was no alternative. Being unable to provide for my child was unthinkable,

I meant the last 15years. I have muscular fingers as I work with my hands. Much harder than anyone else on this thread of course 🤥

rafichagran

Growstuff I am sorry this happened to you, but it truly was not easy for me.
I can only think my employer was different to yours.

No one has said it was easy for you. We all understand as most of us have complex lives ourselves.

There are laws which mean employers should make reasonable adjustments etc so they are fair employers but in my own experience I think things have gotten worse in the last 25 years wrt to accessibility. Some larger employers are obviously much better at facilitating their employees no matter what their range of circumstances but they are few and far between

Growstuff I am sorry this happened to you, but it truly was not easy for me.
I can only think my employer was different to yours.

I needed to work too rafichagran, which is why I did everything I could to continue. Unfortunately, I reached the stage where I just couldn't work. It's difficult to describe to somebody who hasn't experienced it. Before it happened to me, I believed it wasn't possible, but it is.

rafichagran

DaisyAnneReturns

What if the symptoms of your mental illness stop you from doing the best to help yourself rafichagran?

It did at times but the medication helped. You also need to help yourself, I forced myself to go to work sometimes.

I did everything I could to go to work and keep my career. It was my employers who observed that my health meant I wasn't fit to work and sacked me.

I have read back GSMs posts, and the impression I get is that she is saying some people cannot work due to the severity of their physical or mental illness, but if they can they should be encouraged to work.

As someone who has depression and anxiety, I know when it was severe I could not work, but once the medication kicked in I returned to my workplace. I think this is reasonable. It was hard and sometimes I felt ill but as I said before, as a single parent of a teenager, a mortgage, and bills to pay, as well as my older one being at Uni I needed to work.
I totally agree that there are people employees could not take on, and the severity of the condition means they could not work, but there are those like me before I retired a few months ago, who could work,although difficult at times,and should work.

Germanshepherdsmum

My father was blind but worked all his life.

Lots of people with visual impairment manage to work, including someone in my own family. I think we need to refer back to not everyone or their circumstances are the same

My father was blind but worked all his life.

* JaneJudge*, like you, I fear the targeting of people with Special Needs. A young woman I know has slight cognitive impairment, and a variety of physical difficulties including very limited sight and difficulties with walking. She is clumsy and has many falls: stairs are a challenge for her. All of these conditions she has had from birth.
I understand that she is called in, from time to time, to have her needs reassessed (!) and discuss how she might find work. She would love to work, but I cannot see how any employer would find her a useful addition to his/ her team of employees- quite the reverse, as others would be required to look out for her in addition to their regular work.
I hope that the rhetoric of " benefit scroungers" does not result in further tightening of claims for people such as her.

Grantanow

Doesn't surprise me the Tories are planning big benefit cuts.

They are committed to cutting public-spending, it is their raison d'être.

The very poorest right up to middle-income earners will be those most affected.

As always.

Doesn't surprise me the Tories are planning big benefit cuts.

DaisyAnneReturns

Germanshepherdsmum

Thank you for that Delila. I also have intimate knowledge of the difference between ‘I must’ and ‘I CBA’. Do you?

Why do you paint yourself this way GSM?

What do you mean by that?

DaisyAnneReturns

Germanshepherdsmum

I worked with a man who had BD. He had some very bad days but was always in the office. He had previously been in the military, and carried that attitude through to his work.

But that's not everyone with bipolar. How can you have such excruciatingly narrow views?

I gave an example of one person. I did not say that his experience was the experience of everyone with that condition. Some can and do work, some can’t.

nanna8

One problem is that those assessing the clients may not be accurate in their assessments. Some people with dreadful disabilities appear upbeat and happy even though they really need all the help they can get. Others can be very skilled actors and receive benefits which they are not entitled to. The assessors need to be very,very skilled but I doubt they are. Same applies here. Often those most in need are the silent ones,sadly.

So true nanna8

One problem is that those assessing the clients may not be accurate in their assessments. Some people with dreadful disabilities appear upbeat and happy even though they really need all the help they can get. Others can be very skilled actors and receive benefits which they are not entitled to. The assessors need to be very,very skilled but I doubt they are. Same applies here. Often those most in need are the silent ones,sadly.

Germanshepherdsmum

I worked with a man who had BD. He had some very bad days but was always in the office. He had previously been in the military, and carried that attitude through to his work.

But that's not everyone with bipolar. How can you have such excruciatingly narrow views?

The well-being service offers group teams counselling services with strangers which people have to qualify and wait months for unless they pay private which presumably people on benefits cannot afford

Cabbie21 my adult daughter is on sanctioned benefits (still have to find out why months counting as no one is accountable) she’s attended special school since she was 2yo and lacks mental capacity. Maybe she is the target?

She is under the care of the local authority, you’d think it might be easier to do some sort of direct baseline funding to people who lack capacity in care. It seems not. They have to queue up at 9am at the job centr instead

I agree with what you say to some extent Dickens, and of course serious psychiatric conditions will render some people to be able to work, but alot of people have depression like mine which at the time was quite serious, I took the quite high dose of anti depressants and in time I felt better. I had some time of work but as soon as the physical symptoms I suffered were not as bad I returned to work. It took alot of effort but I managed. I had to as at the time I had a mortgage, was a single parent to a teen, my older one was at uni, and I had bills to pay.
In every type of condition you get people who are so bad they cannot work, but with alot of mental health, medication or counselling can help.
Whilst not unsympathetic to people with mental health that cannot work, alot can. I have also cut down my dose if medication.

rafichagran

Germanshepherdsmum

If you really are unable to work, you are unable to work. Depression and anxiety, for which I have had to take medication for decades, and most probably always will, do not render you unable to work. If I had sat around at home rather than making the very real effort to get out of bed and go to work each morning I would probably have given in to the suicidal thoughts. If you are able to work, you should - I speak from experience. We should not be paying people to stay at home if they can work.

Your experience echoes mine exactly, decades of it myself, I take medication, but have cut down drastically.
I have always managed to work, gone in feeling alful some days. I have every sympathy for people who have mental heath conditions and some can't work for a time, but you must do your best to help yourself and work if you can.

There are some depresssive states where I think employers would be very reluctant to take on people suffering from them.

Psychotic depression, for example - where the sufferer may have hallucinations and delusions. Depending on the severity of the condition, and whether the sufferer takes their medication as prescribed - it might even not be safe to employ such individuals. Employers have to consider their other employees.

Will these work coaches in job centres be au fait with this type of depression? Or will they just be using a crib-sheet / tick box approach?

Simply lumping 'depression' under one heading and assuming that all those affected can work of they really try hard enough is fallacious, and dangerous. As you are aware I'm sure, there's mild to moderate depression anyway, and then there's major depressive disorder, persistent depressive disorder, etc. And then there is depression together with other disorders, or diseases.

The reality is far removed from the image of someone suffering a mild to moderate depression who just can't face getting up in the morning. That was what I suffered and it was relatively easy to overcome to a large extent, but that is not the case for all depressives.

No pun intended, I guess, but if a claimant has to attend an appeal hearing, they will be treated fairly. If they meet the criteria, they will feel they have received a sympathetic hearing, as the law will have been properly interpreted. This is not always the case at the assessment stage. I have yet to be convinced that there are no targets. The brief seems to be to ensure as few people as possible are found to qualify for disability benefits.
I would like to see how anyone survives on the meagre entitlement of benefits, which is incentive enough to get a job for those who are able to do so. And as for those who are sanctioned, expected to live on less money, that has been proved not to work, as an incentive to get a job. Those who miss an appointment at the Job Centre are usually those whose health makes it impossible to comply with claimant requirements.

From things I’ve heard, I don’t think we can have any confidence that cases like this will necessarily receive a sympathetic hearing.