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DLA at 16

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Hi, my daughter has a diagnosis of ASD/Aspergers and has just turned 16. We have claimed DLA for the last year for her and it has enabled us to do many lovely things that we might not have done otherwise.....weekends away with her as a little break for us all, day trips, meals out, and things which surround her special interests, as well as monthly pocket money...very useful carrot to dangle when working on behaviour issues!

Now she is 16, a cheque has arrived in her favour for the amount of her monthly DLA. I called them to express my concerns about her having possession of this money as she is quite likely to blow it all on dvd's, skateboards, and energy drinks! They said that somebody would need to come out to speak to us and to her to evaluate whether or not she can manage her own money. Thing is, she would fiercely declare that she can!!! On the other hand, since she moved from mainstream to special school, she has begun to make more progress and is considering going to college when she leaves next year so perhaps it would be good for her to begin to manage money herself? Should I cancel the appointment and see how she copes with at least some of it, but if it all goes wrong, could I recommence receiving it on her behalf again?

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T agreed to me being his appointee (I pointed out to him that he would have to fill in the forms and sort out any problems over the phone otherwise). I get the money in my account and then I have a DD to put it into his account. However, should there be any problems, I could cancel my DD. If your dd is agreeable now, it might be easier to do the same, as the older she gets, the less likely she is to agree.

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Hi, My son gets a small amount of DLA. We only received it for a few months before him reaching 16 as he was only diagnosed with AS five months before his birthday. My son is reclusive and I seriously considered being appointed as his Trustee as I feared, like you, that he would flitter the money away on 'stuff'. I decided that I would leave him to control the money and that if he decided to spend it on what I considered to be rubbish then hopefully I could explain the benefits of saving for something important when he ran out of funds.

 

So far, (5 months or so), he has managed quite well. He does buy computer games quite a lot but as this is how he fills his reclusive time then I guess this is important for him. He did surprise me by buying a Jumper for himself!! Christmas is coming, and I will be explaining that he will be expected to buy his own gifts for the family. We will see how this goes. Also, I did encourage him to attend the Bank with me initially to open a bank account for the money to go in to. As he is severely reclusive this was a challenge but he managed to attend an appo. As he has lost the code for the interneet banking, I also encourage him to come out once a month to check the balance.

 

My way of thinking is that we wont always be here to influence their spending so better they make some mistakes and learn by them now.

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