Crohn's and Colitis UK - DLA for a Child under 16

DLA for a Child under 16

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You can claim DLA even if you don’t consider your child to be ‘disabled’
For the purposes of DLA, ‘disabled’ simply means that your child has a long term illness which affects their everyday activities.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been advised not to make a claim
If anyone, including Benefits Agency staff, your GP, a nurse or social worker told you not to make a claim because your child is not ill enough, get a second opinion from a professional welfare rights worker. People have all sorts of ideas about who ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ get DLA, and most of them are wrong. The question of entitlement is a legal one, not a medical one. If in doubt, make a claim.

Your own circumstances as the parent or carer are not taken into account in any way
So it doesn’t matter if:

you’re working

you’re unemployed

your partner works

you don’t have a partner

you’ve never paid national insurance contributions

you, or anyone else in your family, is claiming any other benefits (such as Incapacity Benefit, Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance or DLA)

you have savings

Try this two minute test to see if your child might be eligible
(This is not a legal test, it’s one we invented to help make it easier to decide whether to make a claim)

Step 1

Look through this list of some (but not all) of the activities that are relevant to DLA:

getting up and going to bed

washing, bathing and showering

dressing and undressing

going to the toilet

eating and drinking

taking medication

sleeping

walking outdoors (especially in unfamiliar places)

being left alone

learning

playing

being with, or talking to, other people

social and leisure activities

Step 2

Choose one of the activities above that your child has difficulties with.

For example, your child may have difficulties with:

walking because of fatigue;

talking to other people because they have become very withdrawn;

going to the toilet because of soreness around the anus;

getting out of bed, getting washed and dressing because of severe fatigue.

Step 3

With your chosen activity in mind answer the following true or false questions :
My child can do it:

but it hurts them	True or False?
but only more slowly than other children of the same age	True or False?
only with more help than other children of the same age	True or False?
but not as safely as other children of the same age	True or False?
but only because they’ve got a special technique of their own	True or False?
but they need more encouragement than other children of the same age	True or False?
but they need watching more closely than other children of the same age	True or False?
My child can’t do it, but other children of the same age can	True or False?

Step 4

If you haven’t answered true to any of the questions, try the test again with another activity from the list and so on, until you’ve found a statement that is true or decided that there aren’t any.

Step 5

If the answer is true to any of those questions in relation to any activity then your child may be entitled to DLA. If your child’s condition is a variable one, so the answer is sometimes True and sometimes False then they may still be eligible for DLA.

If the answer wasn’t true to any of the questions, your child may still be eligible for DLA, you should try to get advice from a professional welfare rights worker.

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Crohn’s and Colitis UK is the working name for The National Association for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease (NACC)
Charity registered in England Number 1117148
Charity registered in Scotland Number SC038632
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