Surviving the Election Result
Almost every disabled person I know is devastated by the UK election result. We had hoped for a socialist government that would not only end austerity but dramatically improve disabled people’s lives.
We desperately need a new compassionate benefits system. We campaigned for the UK to sign up to the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People. We lobbied for improved and properly funded social care with a guarantee of Independent Living for disabled people of any age.
But none of those things look possible in the next few years. So how do disabled people prepare for the future?
As one of my wisest friends posted on her Facebook wall last Friday morning; ‘Don’t mourn, organise’. She is right, that’s the only way we can survive.
So here are some ideas:
Join your local disability group or Union
There will be lots of campaigning needed in the next few years. Being part of a supportive group is great for making new friends and finding other people who understand what you are going though.
All unions have retired members sections and Unite has a Community Section that in many areas throughout the UK has regular meetings and lots of activities and training.
Up-skill
We can all use new skills – you can learn via your Union or via your local disability group. If they don’t have any training available, ask for the training you need. Learning more about how to claim ESA, PIP or UC is likely to be useful for you and for someone you know. It’s always easier to help someone else fill in a DWP form than do your own.
Get a Benefits and Work subscription, it’s invaluable. They produce the best, easy to follow guides on how to claim. The first year subscription costs £19.95. If that’s more than you can afford, why not share the cost with a friend. A repeat subscription is usually 40% cheaper.
Help or support other disabled people
Whilst up-skilling can help you do some practical stuff around benefits, all of us have other skills we can share. Teaching crafts, passing on recipes, helping with internet skills, the list is endless. I’ve done genealogy for friends in return for a spare ticket to an exhibition I wanted to see.
Think what you can share and what help you might want.
Focus on spending time with ‘your’ tribe
Friendships were made or lost over Brexit and the same is likely to happen over this election. It’s very difficult to find real support and true friendships amongst people with radically different political views and values.
Choose your friends well, make sure they are positive people who can support you and won’t do you down or disrespect you.
That advice applies to family members too! Ration your time with those who stress you.
Practice self care
This is the most important way of looking after yourself. Be kind to yourself. Give yourself a treat – there’s so many sales on right now – you can treat yourself to some of your favourite bath or shower gel. Maybe you would prefer chocolate? If a special liqueur is more to your taste – cheers! Just don’t drink too much of it!
If you are short of ideas – go look at Pinterest. Or join The Mighty a great community for disabled people, which has lots of great posts and ideas. It might even tempt you to write your own post.
Whatever you decide to do – be kind to yourself and others.
Wishing you all a happy festive season!
Life from my Wheelchair 
The ATOS Form
The frantic phone call came a few days ago. My friend *Kim, normally so talkative, could hardly speak. ‘It’s come, I’ve been staring at it, I don’t know how to answer the questions.’ Once she’d got the first words out, the rest spilled out in a torrent; ‘If they cut my benefit I can’t manage. What if they try to send me back to work, I can’t even manage to do my volunteering one day a week.’
I’m really concerned at this, Kim had tried so hard to get a placement with a local children’s storytelling charity. She was thrilled when she was accepted, it was a real boost to her self-confidence. ‘Why, what’s happened?’ I enquire. ‘Since the form came, I’ve gone right back, I can’t cope with anything.’ Was her almost tearful reply.
‘Can I come over to yours? Can you help me fill in the form?’ She pleaded. ‘Yes, of course, come on Monday’ I quickly responded. ‘We’ll get it sorted together’ I heard a huge sigh of relief on the other end of the phone. Then, I was able to talk to her about her children, her son married last summer and now in the US on a work placement and her daughter, A beautiful bright young woman, taking her A levels this year.
A normal mum and kids, you might think. But no, Kim’s children have not lived with her for many years. Her son was the first to go into care, getting involved with drugs and the wrong crowd. Her daughter was eventually long-term fostered by a family member, after a placement where she was physically abused. The woman who has fostered her daughter is the only non-alcoholic, in a toxic family, with two generations of troubled drinkers.
Kim didn’t stand a chance, abused and neglected as a child, she left home to escape, and didn’t make good choices about the men she had relationships with. Remarkably she went to university and got a degree, but the only man she married, and the father of her daughter would not support his family, so Kim left, and never did get any money from him.
I first met her through an ex-girlfriend, who was trying to help Kim look after her children. Kim’s flat was as chaotic as her life had been. I remember Kim being so relieved when the police arrested her then boyfriend for attempted murder. As was I, having felt a coward for not wanting to enter her flat if he was there.
Shortly after that, the children went into care, Kim was determined to get clean and sober, she went to rehab, did really well. She was given a property in a new area, and plans were made for her to get her daughter back.
But then, everything started to go wrong. The house had no hot water, no heating, and Kim had very little money to get basics such as a cooker and a fridge. I visited her daily to give her some support, and despite everything she was cheerful and longing to have her daughter home. There had been short visits, then longer ones, but no overnight stays. Suddenly, the social workers decided that a long bank holiday weekend was the best time for Kim’s 7 year old daughter to return home.
The house still did not have heat, hot water or a cooker that worked. No carpets on the floor and no proper beds, only mattresses. The social workers knew this. Kim was scared, she knew the situation with the house wasn’t right, but she dare not refuse to have her daughter home.
By the Monday lunchtime things had gone wrong. Kim had just had her first sip of alcohol in over 12 months, when her daughter’s previous foster mum turned up unannounced, accused Kim of being completely drunk (she wasn’t) and dragged Kim’s crying daughter out of the house. When I got there 10 minutes later, Kim was sober, she had poured the drink away and was distraught at loosing her daughter again. We couldn’t contact the social workers, our messages were not returned. Nothing could be done until the next day.
Kim was blamed, the social workers not caring that such a quick return was almost bound to fail, especially with the house not suitable for a young child to stay in. This time Kim had no chance, her daughter was to be long-term fostered 200 miles away.
Kim was devastated, started drinking again and eventually went back to rehab. She moved away from London to a small rural town be nearer her daughter. I didn’t see her for a couple of years, till she returned to London, still sober, but having missed the culture of a big city.
She saved what little money she had to keep going north to see her daughter. Her son had a flat nearby and started training to become a social worker, hopefully a better one than those who had failed his family. He and Kim had also become Christians, which gave Kim a new family.
But now, Kim’s world is threatened by an uncaring government, bent on penalising people who are unable to work. Every benefit claimant is being reassessed. The process being run by a government contractor, ATOS who have recently announced they will be terminating their involvement in this discredited process.
All of us on benefits are affected, and some have not survived. Many people have died, having been told only days earlier they were ‘fit for work’ others have committed suicide. Such is the pressure placed on them by this inhuman system.
Anyone newly applying to the DWP for benefits is having to wait months to get the money they need to live on, making people destitute and needing to use Food Banks to survive.
Despite being sober, Kim has anxiety, this is a long term condition, she also has long-standing depression, arthritis, poor balance, vision problems and finds if difficult to concentrate and follow through on tasks.
Individually, these are not insurmountable problems, but all together they mitigate against Kim being able to work.
Hence her fear of filling out the form and being forced to compete for work, with little chance of obtaining, let alone sustaining employment.
Whilst Kim is well read and articulate, she was one of the people who encouraged me to write this blog, filling out the capability for work form has defeated her.
Kim’s creativity, with both words and her artistic skills, are no help. So I need to try and ensure the form is completed in such a way as to maximise Kim’s chances of retaining her current level of benefits.
The prospect if I’m unsuccessful, is too awful to contemplate. Would my lovely kind friend survive, would her long fought for sobriety be lost? All I’m sure of is that until Kim knows that her benefit payments are secure again, everything is at risk.
*Kim is a pseudonym to protect my friend’s anonymity.
The cartoon by Crippen Cartoons is reproduced by kind permission.
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