My daughter with severe autism and learning difficulties is moving from an education setting to a social setting. She will be attending 4 days a week.
We live in a rural area and have heard that social care do not provide transport. My daughter receives the higher rate of the mobility component of PIP. It is going to be very difficult for me to get her to her day care as it will be an hours round trip x 2 a day. Also I would have to give up work.
Was wondering if anyone else has been in this situation and what the outcome was.
Thank you.
Written by
Beansprout1
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Hi I live in Surrey and they send transport for some people to attend day centres. If you have a Care Manager/Social worker they should be assessing your daughters needs. I would push for this.
In Scotland social work need to assess and should pay. If she wasn't disabled she would be making the journey on her own. You probably would need to make a journey contribution. As her carer your needs need to taken into account.
Is social work paying for the day centre? Should be included in this.
My lad gos to collage for complexed needs , he's 20 and started to get Universal credit. But he has a bursary fund with his collage, they pick him up . Maybe ask your local council for a reasonable adjustment on the care package. Xxx
My brother has learning and physical disabilities (uses a wheelchair) and attends a day centre three times a week. He loves his day centre but they couldn’t/ wouldn’t provide transport for attendees with physical disabilities, and the transport option offered by the local authority was a dedicated bus costing £75 each way for a 15 minute journey. Ridiculous.
I found some local taxi drivers who had vehicles that could accommodate his wheelchair and take him for £15 each way, and negotiated payment for this via his social worker and the transport committee at his CLDT (Community Learning Disability Team). Does your daughter have a CLDT? Not sure how these work.
I think your point about work is a good one. I made the point to the CLDT that I would have to give up work (which pays the bills and allows me to care for my brother full time while he’s not at his day centre) if they couldn’t cover it and would therefore have to ask for more expensive help/cover/ care from the local authority if I didn’t have this small thing effectively allowing me to bring in a salary. This logic seemed to do the trick more than when I pointed out as he’d been assessed as needing the three days at his day centre, transport should be legally included (see lukeclements.co.uk/resource.... Not sure if this helps but worked for me.
The taxis aren’t 100% reliable however so we’ve been looking at using his enhanced mobility for a Motability car, and then I can either drive him (not ideal as you say if trying to work full time, but less time commitment for me than your hour round trip) or the CLDT can potentially get an escort to do so, again, cheaper than the £75 for the dedicated bus.
Hope some of these thoughts or approaches help, it did take me weeks to sort out with getting an assessment as 1946timmy says, then back and forth with transport team, finding taxis, providing invoices and so on but maybe more straightforward if your daughter doesn’t have a physical disability or wheelchair to accommodate? Good luck!
Social services have a duty to provide the transport, or funding for transport, if a disabled person has a need which cannot be met unless there is suitable transport. There was a judicial review of this situation and the link below explains:
Social Workers are often unaware of this or are guided by managers (who will often quote local policy) not to offer transport under an assumption that transport is covered by the mobility component of DLA - it isn’t!
We printed a copy of this document and gave it to our social worker and that helped us to get the funding she needed.
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