Can you claim DLA if you home ed?

[Beccy03]

we are at crisis pint and im thinking of deregistering. we are also having financial difficulty and im worried about how we will cope. can you claim DLA for everyday stuff even when you are home ed or will we be totally 'on our own' as regards the costs of raising our daughter? i know that living and education are totally seperate but i wondered if taking her out of the system would mean losing other help aswell? can we also still access CAMHS and other resources with that being health related?

[KarenT]

From what I gather, the only resources you might have difficulty accessing is that which is bought in from the relevant authorities by individual schools on their own budgets. If your daughter gets eg speech therapy via school, you might have to work that out via the health authority as you'd no longer be eligible for what is essentially a school package. If in doubt, ask the provider.

 

As for DLA - I take it you haven't already claimed on the basis of diagnosis? If you haven't already then maybe you should consider doing so. The guide to claiming on the Cerebra website is excellent. Make sure you keep a copy of your claim for future reference. HE won't make a difference to your claim - if your daughter qualifies on her needs then she gets DLA, though as many here will tell you it's quite common to have to go to reconsideration or even appeal before you get an award. Some people have asked if DLA increases with the decision to HE but it doesn't, you only get higher rates of care if the child needs support during the night.

 

Most LEAs give very little support for elective home edders so essentially yes, you are on your own when it comes to providing resources and materials. There is no funding generally, though some of the more enlightened LEAs will give advice and may even point you in the direction of supports and services you might like to access. But essentially, once you've made the decision to opt out they wash their hands of you, apart from the controversial monitoring to make sure you're educating to a reasonable standard.

 

Good luck, whatever your decide.

Karen

x

[JsMum]

 

 

DLA goes by needs in the home, if you decide to home educate then you just express your choice of home education and if you implement any stratagies that take into account her special needs then describe these too, so if you use visual aids, or equiptment that support her learning due to her special needs then include these, I flexi schooled J for over a year due to J not coping full time in mainstream and his DLA was not effected because his needs were still there at home.

 

The only way DLA is effected is if a child goes into a residential special school, the care rate is reduced the days they are in the residential.

 

I could not home educate full time J and his challenging behaviour and special needs where more than I could support him alone and so saught a 24 curriculum and now in a residential Special needs school.

 

So do look into other educational placements before embarking on a home schooling to ensure it is the right choice because at the end of the day home ed is what is called education otherwise.

 

Good Luck,

 

But yes you can claim DLA and home Educate.

 

JsMum

 

 

[Marion]

We're in much the same position, had no choice but to take DS out of school it was really damaging his mental health in the end, but yes we r very skint now having basically lost my wage. On the plus side DS loads happier and we're enjoying learning together.Some of the things I found out in the last couple of months

Carers Allowance-if your child gets DLA at middle or highe rate and you earn less than �95 a week you can get carers all, its about �50 a week.

Family fund-you can apply for a grant for all sorts of things if you're on a low income.

Cerebra will pay for specialist computers, trampolines, bikes etc.

Am looking into working at night, maybe puttin the mortgage onto interest only, tax credits-there's something about 3k per annam if you're child gets DLA??

This is just my findings so might not all be correct, it's worth doing some research locally, somebody came out to the house and filled our DLA form in for us, can't remember where she came from.

There's loads of free stuff on the internet you can access for learning at home as well.PM me if you want to chat, good luck.

[Tally]

Home educating will not affect a claim of DLA in any way. It is intended to help with additional living expenses the disability creates, but in reality, you can spend it on whatever you like as there are no checks. When I got awarded DLA it was back-paid from the date I applied, so I used the lump sum to buy clothes, CDs and DVDs.

[westie]

Cerebra also offer vouchers for speech and language therapy, if your child is not getting it from elsewhere (someone's comment about not being able to access the services that school may bring in made me think about this)

 

See:

http://www.cerebra.org.uk/parent_support/s...ech_therapy.htm

 

 

they also offer grants:

http://www.cerebra.org.uk/grants/

 

They also have a library of books and sensory equipment that parents can loan for a period of time!

http://www.cerebra.org.uk/parent_support/Library/

 

[Tensing]

My son gets DLA and has been home educated for 4 years now.