Dear All,
WE have a case that I haven't struck before here and need a bit of
advice on.
We have a student with quite a serious mental health difficulty and also
a physical disability who lives in Gloucester, he is hoping to attend a
course here three days a week and he is planning on travelling down from
Gloucester each day as he does not want to live in London, he is a
student in his fifties, so he is fairly settled where he is.
Unfortunately, he cannot drive down himself because of his various
disabilities and nor can be travel alone, he needs someone to travel
done via train with him each day and back again. The problem we have is
that the DSA does not cover travel costs for this support worker person
and although they will cover the cost of this person taking notes for
him they will not cover costs of paying the person to travel with him.
Unfortunately, Social Services don't seem to cover the costs of a carer
to travel with a disabled person either, or at least they won't in this
case. Can anyone advise what they have done in a similar situation or
where we might go for funding to cover this sort of expense? It's
likely to cost £10,000 a year, we're already considering ALF and the
Snowdon Award but that won't give us enough.
Hoping for some suggestions.
Regards
Pauline
Pauline McInnes
Disability Co-ordinator
Disability Team
Student Services
St Mary's Road
Ealing
London
W5 5RF
Tel: 0208 231 2058
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