Benefits for families of children with disabilities

Read our parents’ guide to PIP blog, with top tips and information about help with PIP in Cambridgeshire.

Disability Rights has a helpful guide to PIP, including advice on filling out the forms.  Download a copy

Contact has information and advice about Personal Independence Payment.

It also has a guide for parents on PIP and other benefits at 16, which looks at what tests are used to decide if someone gets PIP, how the points system works, plus other benefits and rights entitlements when a child reaches 16 years of age and is staying on, or leaving, non-advanced education or approved training.

Parents can request their free copy of the guide through the freephone helpline on 0808 808 3555.

PIP helpline:  0345 850 3322

This new means-tested benefit is being rolled out across the UK.

It’s for people of working age and is gradually replacing new claims for income support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, child tax credit, working tax credit and housing benefit.

Contact has lots of information about Universal Credit on its website and how it will affect families with disabled children.

If you spend 35 hours or more caring for your child or young person, you may be eligible for Carer’s Allowance. Read an overview of the Carer’s Allowance benefit and learn about eligibility and how to claim on the government website

Contact has factsheets and a video explaining who can claim.  Visit Contact’s Carer’s Allowance webpage to learn more.

If you care for someone over 16 years old for more than 20 hours a week you may be entitled to National Insurance (NI) credits.

Find out about eligibility, how much you could get and how to claim by viewing the GOV.UK Carers Credit web page.

• Disability Huntingdonshire (DISH), a registered Cambridgeshire charity, provides free welfare benefits advice and home visits to the people of Huntingdonshire and South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City and Fenland. DISH can help with application forms and, where applications are refused, can apply for Mandatory Reconsideration, and can take cases to Appeal at Tribunal. 
• Contact, the UK charity supporting families with disabled children, has benefits advisers who can make sure you know about all the different financial help available and give advice on claiming it. Its free helpline 0808 808 3555 (9.30am-5pm, Monday-Friday) can also put you in touch with local advice agencies for one-to-one help, for example form filling and with national condition support groups, who often provide families with advice on claiming benefits specific to their child’s condition.
• Disability Rights UK provides a range of advice and factsheets covering all aspects of benefits and related advice for parent carers and claimants
• Cambridgeshire County Council’s Welfare Benefits Advice offers free support and assistance with claiming disability benefits and other connected benefits for children and young people and adults. Tel 01353 612926.
• Citizens Advice Bureau for Cambridge, and RuralCAB for the rest of Cambridgeshire, can help with benefit, money and legal advice
• Little Miracles cover Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and can offer benefit advice and support
• Spectrum Cambridge can also offer support around benefits

Whilst we are not able to do this at Pinpoint there are other organisations locally who can:

Disability Huntingdonshire (DISH) can do this for Huntingdonshire  and Cambridgeshire Residents

The Citizen’s Advice Bureau can help, as can Little Miracles.

But some forms are easily completed easily, especially if you have a little online help.

Guides

DISH have produced some easy to read guides that walk you through how to complete the forms:

DLA(Disability Living Allowance)

PiP (Personal Independence Payments) 

Employment Support Allowance

Videos

And there are a range of videos online that can help too:

Cerebra have one for DLA

DWP have a PiP version

There is a Universal Credit one too.

Housing Benefits and Council Tax help

These benefits are managed by your local district or City Council:

Huntingdonshire
South Cambs
Fenland
Cambridge City Council
Peterborough City Council

Disagree with a decision over Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits? Before you can appeal you have to ask the DWP to reconsider – it’s called a “mandatory reconsideration”.

• Disability Rights UK can off advice for anyone challenging a decision on a benefit administered by the DWP – such as employment and support allowance, DLA and PIP.
• Disability Huntingdonshire (DISH), a registered Cambridgeshire charity, provides free welfare benefits advice and home visits to the people of Huntingdonshire, South Cambridgeshire, Cambridge City and Fenland. DISH can help with application forms and, where applications are refused, can apply for Mandatory Reconsideration, and can take cases to Appeal at Tribunal.

Many parent carers and families may be entitled to welfare benefit support.  You may find searching for benefits according to your circumstances a useful route to finding the information you need.  These links will take you the Turn2US website which can guide you through the information you may find useful.

• Armed Forces
• Bereaved
• Bringing up a child
• Carer
• Expecting a Child
• Furloughed
• Ill, Injured or Disabled
• In Work – on a Low Income
• Looking for Work
• Migrant
• Older Person
• Prisoner
• Redundancy
• Shielding
• Studying (aged 16+)
• Young Person (aged 16-18)

It can be a challenge to work out what you might be entitled to.  The benefit calculator from Turn2Us calculates your entitlement to means-tested benefits and carers allowance.  These are benefits that take into account the money to earn, get in other benefits or have in savings.  You can access the calculator through this link.

Many parent carers and families may be entitled to welfare benefit support.  You may find searching for benefits according to benefit a useful route to finding the information you need.  Contact A Family provide this useful directory to help you.

Benefits & tax credits

Browse this section for up-to-date information from Contact A Family on the benefits you might be entitled to:

Disability Living Allowance (DLA)

Personal Independence Payment (PIP)

Universal Credit

Carer’s Allowance

Tax credits

Help with Council Tax & rates

‘Bedroom tax’

The benefit cap

Other benefits

Benefits at 16

Changes in circumstances

Revisions, appeals & complaints

And the Government’s website has more information too.

Getting a holiday grant on DLA or PiP

Planning a holiday can be a daunting task, especially when managing a disability. But did you know that if you received Personal Independence Payment (PIP) or Disability Living Allowance (DLA) you could access a holiday grant?  You can find background information here. The Turn2Us  Grant Checker can then help you find a grant to apply for. And we have local organisations that may be able to help if you did assistance filling in the forms: DISH and Little Miracles.