Support for disabled children extended

Wednesday 07 January 2015

Changes to open up benefits targeted at disabled children to more families will help “a significant number of households”, according to the Social Security department.

Under the changes, families with disabled children are being made eligible for special support payments, whether or not they qualify for Income Support – that means that middle-earning families will be able to get support too.

Up to now, only families that were already receiving Income Support benefits could apply for the Child Personal Care Benefit, which is worth between £101 to £145 per week to families with significant disabilities. The benefit is aimed at children under 16 who have been assessed by the Social Security department as having mental or physical disabilities at the top two levels of the department’s scale.

To qualify, a household must contain a member who has lived in Jersey for at least five years.

Social Security Minister Susie Pinel said that they wanted to run the application process through the Island’s schools to prevent the department getting swamped with a stack of applications in the next few weeks.

She said that all successful applications would be backdated to 1 January so that no families would lose out – and the department have added that any eligible family with immediate financial needs can contact them straight away.

Deputy Pinel said: “We are anticipating a large number of applications from families who are not currently receiving any benefit and so we are working hard to coordinate resources to meet this demand.

“We will encourage families to apply on a school-by-school basis, and we have agreed to backdate all successful claims to 1 January, so that no one loses out.”