Are you interested in understanding more about Direct Payments? The link below might help you to understand more: Direct payments | Carers UK
What I would like is for CUK to ask the government why my son can’t have direct payments to pay me when I look after him - as the council refuses this. They claim that he is classed as “living with me” on the nights he is here, so that’s why. I argue that he lives in a flat 15 miles away, might as well talk to a brick wall!
Thank you for the feedback bowlingbun
Same as Bowlingbun really. The PAs my daughter has had really just take her out but don’t do much beyond that. I have asked if I can do this after all it’s only 4 hrs a week. I understand that I can as we do not live together but the social worker doesn’t get back to us with a definite answer.
My son saw the social worker for an hour at his review last year. It was absolutely shameful. She sat with her back to him (and me) for the entire meeting. I complained afterwards as there are actually three dining tables in his lounge diner. My own extra large table is holding up the board with his railway layout on. It’s the work of moments to stand the board on it’s edge. Then there’s his proper dining table that I bought for him. It was a lucky find at the tip, it’s an extending Ercol table that would cost at least £700 to buy, I paid £10. They didn’t realise what it was, but I did immediately. I suspect my parents had the largest private collection of Ercol in the world. However, that table has been commandeered by staff to use as their desk. As a result, M eats his meals on the small burr walnut dining table the landlord left. That extends too! The response I had from the Complaints Officer - we are not in the business of moving furniture. Had they not already started the meeting before 2am, when it was supposed to start, I would have done it myself. I was always taught that you should always look whoever you were talking to, in the eye. When talking to M this is even more important as he has severe speech and learning difficulties. I have suggested endlessly that if she saw M here, at my house, then he could show her our steam engines and he could tell her what he knew about them. Instead someone asked him about them at his flat and I was later told he didn’t want to work with steam engines any more. Utter rubbish. There is a poster of him driving one of our engines, with his dad steering, at the largest steam show in the world, hanging on the wall of his flat. There is a picture of all of us at the New Forest Show with the engine, and another of our steam roller. No one has read the tenancy agreement, which says NOTHING must be hung on the walls! Any old social worker is allocated for reviews, once the assessment is done (not completed properly) then the case is immediately closed again.
Same review process here, by someone who has never met S before. She met him at college and only asked him two tokenistic questions. Did talk to me though at length on phone.