Disability payment support for families

Families across Renfrewshire caring for young disabled adults at home are being offered help by a forwardthinking national charity to improve quality of life.

National charity Family Fund is now urging families with a disabled 18 to 24-year-olds living at home to apply for wide-ranging grants through its Your Opportunity scheme.

Set up four years ago – to help young disabled adults lead more fulfilling lives and realise ambitions – the scheme offers grants to support the transition to adulthood and includes technology, training and leisure activities.

Your Opportunity has supported over 1,200 families across the UK in the last 12 months and immediate funds are now available to help many more.

For nearly half of families with disabled children and young people, paying for a beneficial activity or hobby for their disabled child is simply out of the question.

Cheryl Ward, Family Fund’s chief executive officer, said:“We continue to see families with disabled or seriously ill children and young people increasingly struggling to afford the most basic household essentials like food and heating as costs rise and many face mounting debts.

“This means there is very little room for the extras which improve a young person’s quality of life – yet when a child reaches 18, they lose an average of 57 per cent of the support and benefits they had before they reached adulthood.

“Raising a disabled or seriously ill child is three times more expensive than raising other children and this financial cliff-edge at 18 can be very tough for parents and carers of young adults.

“With the cost of living continuing to increase, we’re urging families to apply to us for grants as soon as possible.”