Day 201: Waiting

Here we are waiting for a PIP assessment for Sarah. Bizarrely it was in a room in an art gallery, which made a strange experience even more surreal. 

I could rant. I could complain about a process where in order to get recognition of the fact Sarah needs support with becoming independent I would have to strip her of every bit of confidence and sense of achievement she has built up over the last few years. A process where the assessor's idea of how to establish whether Sarah has any concept of budgeting or the value of money is to ask "if you pay for something that costs 50p with £1, how much change would you get?' - er, isn't that just maths? Why don't you ask her how much a loaf of bread, a coat, a sofa, a month's rent might be? A process which believes asking "do you always understand what you read?" is enough to establish a level of comprehension. How about asking what she reads? If you did you would find it is children's books . And asking "did you enjoy school?" - WTF does that prove? How about digging into how much she would have enjoyed school had she not been in a class of 8 children with 4 adults in an alternative provision, or prior to that a Resourced Provision that we had to fight tooth and nail to get her into. How about asking about the tears every Monday afternoon when she attends the one class of a week at college for which she does not get support. How about asking the person who knows her best and who is her main carer for some input. Especially as another department has already assessed that Sarah is not competent to make the claim herself and has to have an appointee to make the claim. Apparently the appointee's opinion is not valid.

Just to really round off the day I am off to the supermarket.