On the Breadline – “What’s Poverty got to do with me?”

Poverty Conference

6Th March 2015

There was the opportunity to the conference to partake in two, out of nine, case studies, looking at different aspects of poverty. Below are the 9 case studies that were presented and the responses from the delegates. All of the case studies had the same four questions to be discussed and, if possible, addressed.

Case study 1: Disabled adult and carer
Female, aged 56. Successful Career with Welsh Government. Excellent wage, owns own home. Her daughter, aged 30, gave birth to a healthy baby girl but suffered a massive blood clot which has left her severely disabled, both physically and mentally.Granddaughter moved in with her due to the breakdown of the daughter’s relationship.The daughter was in hospital for 9 months and she was discharged to the care of her mum.Mum had no option but to leave her job as could not manage the 24 hour care needs of her daughter or the needs of her granddaughter.
Ceri had not been in receipt of benefits before. From DLA for her daughter to tax credits for the grandchild, child benefit and Employment Support Allowance. Her own health was suffering due to the stress of the financial situation she suddenly found themselves in. Although these benefits exist it was a very complex process to be able to access any of them.
Her Daughter owns her own flat, had a loan, credit card etc.These payments still had to be made. The flat was rented out but there was still a shortfall with the mortgage every month. She cannot sell the property as not hers to sell and she hopes one day her daughter will be well enough to return to her flat.
Her outgoings now far exceed the income of the household. Savings that did exist are long gone, paying for additional physiotherapy, transport costs, and the additional costs of a young child once more.
Questions / Group responses
How could their situation have been prevented in the first place? /
  • Kinship care/special guardianship
  • Capacity of daughter – safe of home
  • Wrap around care package – discharge planning
  • Employment law/work life balance – reduced hours and childcare support
  • Exploration of other family members/partner
  • Multi agency working
  • Adult disability social work
  • Children’s social care – special guardianship
  • Welfare rights/Wrexham Citizen’s Advice Bureau
  • Registered carer

What could be done to help them short term/long term? /
  • Sponsored child-minding – older access to free childcare
  • Debt – Wrexham Citizen’s Advice Bureau/ Welfare Rights
  • Tenancy support
  • Flexible working
  • Professionals giving right advice
  • Wrexham carers service

What are the barriers to this person escaping poverty? /
  • If gives up job voluntarily then can’t claim
  • Professional assumptions – she may not need advice or that she knows about the benefits system
  • Don’t understand long term implications of decisions
  • Failure to act earlier
  • Knowing who to speak to

Q4 – Has there been an impact on this person’s situation as a result of recent policy changes/political changes or service reconfiguration? /
  • If gave up job wouldn’t be entitled to means tested benefits for 6/12 (?)

Case study 2: Adult carer of elderly person
Female, aged 49. Carer for her husband aged 68. He has systemic lupus and more recently diagnosed with dementia. She works full time with the local authority and has done for many years. Her role is quite specialised and she enjoys her work.
Her husband’s condition is deteriorating and she has been juggling her work commitments and his care needs for well over 10 years. His needs now mean he needs far more supervision and cannot be left for long periods alone. He is no longer able to do some of the basic things around the home that he used to. She wants to be able to care for him and not rely on external services to help. However, she has no choice. She simply cannot afford to not work. She is racked with guilt that she has to work. If she were to give up her job then it would have a dramatic impact on the finances of the household.
Questions / Group responses
How could their situation have been prevented in the first place? /
  • Phased themselves into help and support. Despite pride they could have had day care prior to reaching crisis point.
  • Duty of care from employer (Local Authority) to be flexible and offer signposting to support services
  • If she could afford to reduce hours
  • Carers support package – needs assessment
  • Divorce – reliant on carers
  • Isolation – impact on health

What could be done to help them short term/long term? /
  • Check all benefits are in place
  • Access to services for respite in the community
  • Work from home?
  • Flexible work
  • Savings
  • Insurance
  • Needs to accept help and support
  • Short term to support the wife to not feel shame in accepting help
  • Carers group/day care
  • Social worker
  • Accessing support groups
  • GP advice – gateway to support
  • Speak to employer – carer friendly employer
  • Supporting people project
  • Home adaptations
  • Dementia friends network
  • Direct payments
  • Befriending service
  • Telecare

What are the barriers to this person escaping poverty? /
  • Emotional side
  • Money
  • Perception of employer
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Hope (lack of) for the future
  • Grieving her husband
  • Age gap – needs to protect her own future
  • Mitigating poverty – without right support they could be pushed into poverty

Q4 – Has there been an impact on this person’s situation as a result of recent policy changes/political changes or service reconfiguration? /
  • Carers measure
  • Rights to carers assessment

Case study 3: Homeless young person
For confidentiality reasons, the young person within this case study will be referred to as Darren.
Following a family breakdown, at the age of 13 years, ‘Darren’ was placed on a permanent basis with his maternal grandparents. He had resided with them for nearly 4 years prior to the breakdown of the placement.
During his time with his grandparents, Darren had a lot of significant physical and emotional health needs. There was a deterioration of the mental health of Darren’s grandfather and the physical health of Darren’s grandmother, which, combined with Darren’s complex health and emotional needs, resulted with the placement breaking down shortly before Darren’s 18th birthday following a child protection referral.
As a vulnerable 17 year old, Darren was homeless with no education provision or employment and no family support as the grandparents had decided not to maintain a relationship with him.
This was an extremely worrying time for Darren, as he had nothing when he left the family home and was extremely vulnerable. He was also not in receipt of any benefits and had very limited independent living skills.
Questions / Group responses
How could their situation have been prevented in the first place? /
  • Early intervention – school
  • Prevention of initial breakdown
  • Support to grandparents
  • Family support needed at outset
  • Mental health agencies for grandfather
  • Social services for grandmother and assessment of her needs
  • Welfare Rights
  • Young person needs assessment – GP starting point
  • Social worker or Together Achieving Changereferral
  • Emotional needs need to be supported

What could be done to help them short term/long term? /
  • Support – CAMHS – counselling/mediation
  • Tenancy support
  • Adult services for grandparents
  • Benefits – Welfare Rights advice
  • Together Achieving Change
  • Age Concern
  • Housing options
  • Homeless team assessment – priority? Vulnerable?
  • Foyer - supported housing, education, benefits, looking for work
  • Longer term – conflict resolution
  • social services
  • GP referral to Child Mental Health Team
  • Stars project
  • Training
  • Families First
  • Young Carers

What are the barriers to this person escaping poverty? /
  • No education
  • No home
  • Mental health issues
  • No income
  • No family support
  • Emotional health
  • Refer to housing, social services – children’s act and homeless legislation
  • Plan to get to work – education
  • Living skills need to be learnt – long term support needs
  • No home = no benefits
  • Complex health needs
  • No qualifications
  • Excluded from society

Q4 – Has there been an impact on this person’s situation as a result of recent policy changes/political changes or service reconfiguration? /
  • Welfare reform
  • Housing bill
  • Council cuts
  • Grant funded projects reduced funding
  • 3rd sector funding
  • Southwark Judgement
  • Universal Credit
  • Shortage of social housing/emergency accommodation and support
  • More affordable housing
  • Y service (?)

Case study 4: Family with insufficient income
Justina is a Polish national who moved to the UK to work three years ago. She had to stop work when she had a baby, Piotr, who is now 12 months old. She is currently expecting her second baby, due in 5 months` time.
Her partner, Marcin, also worked for two years in a local factory before being made redundant. He has since been claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and the family also receive Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit /Council Tax reduction.
They live in a two bedroom Council-owned property. They were allocated this when Justina was expecting Piotr and Marcin had just started claiming JSA. They were told that they would have to pay the “bedroom tax” which they were ok with at the time. They are therefore still paying around £11 per week in rent, ie the “under-occupancy surcharge”.
Justina says that she does not understand why they have to pay this sum when they are getting Housing Benefit and the same doesn`t seem to apply to other families. She says it is very expensive to feed the household with wholesome and fresh food in the (hopefully) short-term, pending Marcin finding work again.
Marcin has recently received a letter from the DWP*. He does not read English and his spoken English is not as good as he`d like it to be. He says he does not understand what the letter is about but thinks it might be about cutting the JSA payment.
Questions / Group responses
How could their situation have been prevented in the first place? /
  • Right support
  • HB error – bedroom Tax (?)
  • Lack of communication
  • Tenancy support and Welfare Rights advice could be requested at any time
  • Referral to BAWSO
  • Agencies need to engage with Polish communities
  • Support networks, information dissemination
  • Employment support
  • English language skills help
  • Midwife/health visitor
  • Help with benefit claims
  • Jobcentre could have supported/signposted

What could be done to help them short term/long term? /
  • Depends where they live as to what type of service/support
  • Rural locations have particular challenges
  • Help with language skills out in their community
  • Increase social networks/reduce isolation
  • Intervention from tenancy support/WB advice –(?)
  • Offering services without consultation, involvement + engagement is futile
  • Need to build services from ground up
  • Have visitor/support staff should have picked issues up
  • Produce services with the users
  • More support with employment and training. Jobcentre is the point of contact
  • Apply for DHP (?)
  • Challenge bedroom tax situation
  • Employment prospects would improve with language help
  • Wrexham food co-op
  • Families information services
  • Needs to engage with own community
  • Needs help in Polish community to understand DWP letter

What are the barriers to this person escaping poverty? /
  • Language
  • Culture/pride
  • Lack of communication between services
  • Needs Together Achieving Changeapproach
  • Duplication of resources by not collaborating

Q4 – Has there been an impact on this person’s situation as a result of recent policy changes/political changes or service reconfiguration? /
  • Bedroom tax
  • Job Seekers Allowance sanctions
  • Universal credit looming
  • EU migrant workers and JAS – needs specialist intervention and rights
  • Further cuts will reduce services further, staff will be more stretched and less likely to have time to work across services
  • High turnover of staff in council can cause lack of continuity, errors, duplication
  • The Together Achieving Changeapproach takes a more cost-effective long term approach – cases less likely to be ‘revolving door’ in nature
  • Together Achieving Changemakes economic sense

Case study 5: Asylum seeker family
Amanthi and her husband lived a good life in Sri Lanka. They have a beautiful baby boy, Mahinda. In 2011, they decided to move to the UK to pursue their studies at Bangor University.
Unfortunately, their relationship quickly broke down due to pressure from work and studying as well as caring for their son without the support family as had been the case in Sri Lanka. They ended up separating and eventually divorcing as they could not stand being in the same house.
After numerous court sessions, the custody of the boy was awarded to both parents- with Amanthi taking care of the boy five days a week while the husband had him for the remaining two days of the week.
Due to the fact that Amanthi and her husband had come from different ethnic backgrounds, she could not go back home to Sri Lanka, as she would have been persecuted by her husband’s family for divorcing him. At the same time she could not continue with her studies as she could not work and take care of her son at the same time. So she ended up seeking asylum. At this point she lived in abject poverty, she had no money to pay for her accommodation; no food and depended on food parcels from the Salvation Army. As her son is not entitled to free school meals, he went for days without food at school as Amanthi could not afford to feed him during this time. Both were eventually thrown out of their accommodation due to non payment of rent and it is at this point that Amanthi sought asylum in the UK for herself and Mahinda.
When Amanthi received her asylum request feedback, she was only entitled to section 4 support. Section 4 support is designed for refused asylum seekers who cannot leave the UK. Section 4 support consists of accommodation and a payment card (called an Azure card) with £35.39 per week for a single adult. No cash support is provided.
This is what Amanthi and her son are currently living on for the last one and a half years. They have no cash at all to buy from any other shops other than Tesco and Iceland. They have no money for travel to any place. Mahinda cannot go on any school trips as his mother cannot afford to pay for these trips. As such he has become withdrawn and is unwilling to mix and play with children of his own age. He and his mother are sharing accommodation with another family in a small flat and as such he cannot invite his friends to his house. The flat is, as most asylum seekers houses are, run down and in state of disrepair.
All the above, coupled with the continuous racial harassment that the family receive from their neighbours have left them feeling lost and dejected. Amanthi is not allowed to work. Asylum-seekers cannot claim mainstream benefits. They are in most cases not allowed to work. The UK Border Agency has a system to provide support in the form of accommodation and/or basic financial support.
Questions / Group responses
How could their situation have been prevented in the first place? /
  • More support from the university
  • Mediation between husband and wife
  • More advice should be given
  • Support with childcare
  • Support for international students from university
  • More awareness to MRPF help – (?)
  • More education about asylum seekers
  • Organisations to be involved
  • Schools to help pay for school trips and food

What could be done to help them short term/long term? /
  • Schools and organisation to help
  • Long term support for asylum seekers in Wrexham

What are the barriers to this person escaping poverty? /
  • MRTPF –(?)
  • Immigration status
  • Language barrier
  • Cultural issues
  • Changed environment

Q4 – Has there been an impact on this person’s situation as a result of recent policy changes/political changes or service reconfiguration? /
  • No more post study work
  • Money instead of card
  • More awareness on her rights
  • No direct support for asylum seekers

Case study 6: Unemployed adult
John aged 58 attends Communities First on a daily basis to do job search. He has not worked for 15 years as has been claiming disability living allowance (DLA). He has recently been put onto Job Seekers Allowance.
John cannot read or write; he can only just sign paperwork by signing the first two letters of his name. John used to work for a landscaping firm until he became ill and enjoys manual work e.g. gardening. Whilst on DLA John has taken part in a number of voluntary projects in his community – helping with litter picks, etc. and a landscaping project at his local community centre where he led some of the less experienced volunteers. He is now required to look for 4 or 5 jobs per day and to attend the job centre on a daily basis. This requires him to spend £4.00 per day to travel the 8 mile return journey from his home on the bus to Wrexham job centre x 5 days a week. He misses the social aspects of the volunteering, which he now struggles to accommodate in his week.