Hi guys,
Not sure if this is the right place, looked at every section and just plumped for this so please move if needed.
So, I've been a member a good few years and as far as I can remember I've never really asked for anything and always given if I've had the knowledge to do so, so this is where I'd like to ask for a little help.
My son is 2 years old and has something called Global Developmental Delay as well as Autism.
It is generally agreed that trying to help kids when they are as young as possible (early intervention) gives the best results and in the long run gives them a better chance in their future as well as likely saving the taxpayer a lot of money if they can go on to contribute to society instead of relying on care/benefits.
After the government austerity measures our local council cancelled a service called Portage. This was basically a team of specialist nurses that worked with young children through play and brought kids on in all sorts of ways; speech, mobility, feeding .. simple things but to a child who is behind and likely to always be behind a genuine need.
To replace this service the local council instead offer 15 hours a week of nursery placement. However, in order to receive these 15 hours your child has to have a statement, the only way you can get this statement is for your child to be assessed at the nursery over a period of up to 6 months. During these 6 months you have to obviously pay the nursery their fee until such time as you are either awarded or denied a statement .. unless of course if you're on benefits .. then the government will throw money at your kid
I'm in a position where we receive absolutely no benefits (other than standard child benefit). My wife is ill-health retired as her role as an intensive care nurse and our combined income takes us just over the cut-off.
So basically we will have to pay out thousands of pounds in nursery fees just for the opportunity for my son to be assessed and then may not meet the criteria needed.
We don't understand why, when a team of Doctors and our Pediatrician have already given him a formal diagnosis that they then have to spend months assessing him at our expense. If we could afford it I would spend the money in a heartbeat, we don't smoke, hardly drink, have the basic Sky package (more for him really because it's the only way we can get BabyTV .. which he loves) so we aren't living the high life..
We didn't want to go down the benefits route but are now just filling out the 40 page form for DLA for him, but I guess that's another few months wait while he is assessed for that
I'm sure that we won't be the only people in this position and so we are campaigning to try and get this changed.
If you could spare 60 seconds to sign our petition we would be very grateful. I'm pretty sure that if anything actually comes of this we will have missed the opportunity of early intervention with our son but it might just help others out there in the future trapped in the same position.
Please take a look here:
https://www.change.org/p/help-specia...p-they-deserve
Posted the right URL this time .. posted www.change.com on Facebook and it seems that's a Britney Spears inspired lingerie site - which was a welcome distraction for me .. but the wife went feckin mad
Thanks for reading.
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