dla school report and how dla is worked out

Now, I am new to this site but I have recently been making a claim for DLA for my little Leah who is 6 going on 7.

She has ASD. Anyway we applied some time ago before Leah was diognosed with ASD and they turned it down due to school report and again this time thay have turned it down following a school report. I have written to the DWP asking them to reconsider with some extra evidence of event from friends and family and prof ect. PLEASE DO NOT COPY MY WORK WORD FOR WORD, IT IS NOT FULL PROOF AND IT COULD GET YOU IN TROUBLE I basically said the following and hope that it will work for me:

The characteristic of a child on the autism spectrum is that they may behave differently in the very structured environment of a school in comparison to their home lives. Having taken Welfare Rights advice I understand that the Social Security Commissioners have in the past questioned the validity of school enquiry reports in assessing DLA entitlement and that this information should be taken in conjunction with all other available supporting evidence and not solely relied on or taken out of context.

It is necessary to have particular regard to the nature of the school environment when evaluating such evidence in relation to the evidence of other witnesses. Young children at school have to be more or less continually supervised for the school to function properly, so that a child with a disability may not need supervision over and above that which is normally given to all other children while attending school. However, children with disabilities may need supervision beyond that needed by other children when outside the school environment in order to avoid substantial danger to themselves or others, and it is that supervision which needs to be considered when deciding entitlement.

The school has to prevent injury from common dangers in the first place, these may include. in all schools, the staff dealing with day-to-day enforcement of the health and safety policy in accordance with the Law to prevent liability and therefore this is why there are fewer accidents as there are fewer common dangers in schools. DECISION MAKING: A school day is not a full day and we put it to you that the care component should be judged on a child's attention and supervisory needs over a full 24 hour period not just 6 hours of school.

We are confused by the “majority of time issue” as it is entirely possible that attention and/or supervision for hours a day and on frequent occasions through the 24 hour period of a day can respectively be demonstrated either side of the school times, in the morning, evening, and night. This is the case with Leah, where for many hours and intervals we have to address all the morning, evening and night needs during every week, and then the whole weekend. The school cannot possibly comment on Leah's needs during these periods and particularly her night time needs, where she is up every night at regular intervals, and although this varies it is still at least for two hours or more a night and on some nights it can be longer and more often.

We feel that Leah fits the criteria for higher rate of care based on those areas outside of school. Following on from this, that in relation to the lower rate of the mobility component this looks at the need for "guidance and supervision on unfamiliar routes" and again, schools will rarely, if ever see children outside of the school gates. In our case the school do not have to deal with Leah's mobility needs before or after school or on weekends so, it is wrong to base a decision on this particular component from the school report, and other evidence from us, friends, specialist should be the one that is taken into account. We can also add that although the school claim to have crossed a road with Leah, it is clearly not the case as the school have never crossed a road with Leah or taken her out on any school trips.

The school also made the presumption that Leah had gone on a trip to the library but in fact had not gone and the school were corrected. In addition it is common practice for the school coach/bus services to park the curb side or car park of the building they need to attend and therefore the prevention of crossing the road is priority. The decision does not take into account all the difficulties she has to deal with in everyday life of the wider community and home, not just at school which, as we have established, is a controlled, structured environment. We respect what you say but, if anyone spends the majority of the time with Leah it is us, we are Leah's parents and know her much better than the school do, spending some 18 hours in any 24 hour period between mornings, days, evenings and nights on a Monday to Friday basis. We also spend 48 hours over the weekend with Leah, The school only spend around 5 to 6 hours in any one 24 hour period for 5 days, therefore with those figures in mind it would only be fair to say that the majority of the time falls in favour of us.

Well fingers crossed I did end up doing an 88 page sa along with this bit in it and it killed me I was ill after it and felt I needed to claim sickness money to cure me from completing the claims and reconsideration.

We cannot offer advice to individuals about a specific benefits problem under any circumstances. To give accurate and reliable advice about a specific benefits problem, we'd need to know a great deal about your income, savings, health problems, household arrangements and more. To give advice without all this information would seriously risk misinforming you.

If you need specific benefits advice, you can download our FREE, 12 page guide to getting help with your benefits.

Can you therefore please confirm what feedback you require from your post, and can you also explain what you mean by "PLEASE DO NOT COPY MY WORK WORD FOR WORD, IT IS NOT FULL PROOF AND IT COULD GET YOU IN TROUBLE"?

Hi,

Ermm I think I may have upset something here not sure what but sorry anyway, I was trying to give people an idea what may be worth saying in reply to a claim regading the school report,,the comment made about
not using what I had worrten word for word is basially saying Im not totaly sure if it would uphold or gaurantee and suscessful claim. Sorry again if it casued any upset or problems..

No problem, we just weren't sure where you were coming fromw with it, especially the phrase that Crazydiamond quoted.

What I was trying to say is that DLA is calculated on a 24 hours basis not 6 hours, and that the school report should be considered in conjuction with all other evidence, not just on its own merits when assessing a claim for DLA. I never wanted anyone to get in trouble with the advice thats why I said dont copy it word for word if that makes sence.

Your post has been approved, and it is now the first post in this thread.