Benefits Advice Service
Please note demand for this service is very high. We therefore ask those parents who need to cancel appointments to give as much as notice possible, ideally 48 hours. This will enable us to allocate the appointment space to another parent. Many thanks. |
Reaching Families’ Benefits Advice Service provides support to parents of children and young people under 25 with SEND in West Sussex applying for Carer’s Allowance, Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The service includes the following elements:
- Bookable Services: Book these here or click the individual links below:
https://calendly.com/reaching-families-benefits
• Benefits Advice: 1-2-1 advice sessions by phone with one of our Benefits Advisors for applications for Carer's Allowance, DLA and PIP, including initial applications, renewals and Mandatory Reconsideration. Book this here.
• Checking draft DLA and PIP forms. If you want your drafted form to be checked against DWP criteria and to receive feedback by email before you send your form, book this here for DLA and PIP. Please note this service is term-time only.
• In-person Benefits Advice Roadshows. Any currently available to book will show here:
https://calendly.com/reaching-families-benefits
- Information resources on benefits and other sources of financial support. We have published a number of factsheets available here. Our parent-carer book, Making Sense of It All, also contains a chapter on benefits and money matters. See our Parent Guide page.
- Benefits Calculator To check what benefits and other financial support you may be entitled to please use our benefits calculator provided by Turn2Us.
- Training workshops on DLA, PIP,Universal Credit and much more. Please visit our training page for further information on upcoming workshops. We would also recommend joining our mailing list to ensure you are up-to-date with our training schedule and other projects and services.
- Awareness raising of benefits and other sources of financial support. We do this through our Facebook Group and Page (see here) and through our animations which include one busting myths about DLA.
If you have other further queries please contact benefits@reachingfamilies.org.uk.
Other Support Available
Reaching Families works in partnership with Carers Support West Sussex and Citizens Advice West Sussex to give benefits advice and support to parent-carers. Carers Support provide 1-2-1 advice on all benefits available to carers whilst Citizens Advice are offering webinars on DLA and PIP. You can read more about their respective services using the following links:
Carer Benefits Advice Service | Carers Support West Sussex
SEND Information and Support - Citizens Advice in West Sussex