Child Poverty Action Group

Many young people who have been ‘looked after’ by the local authority are excluded from income-related benefits. Instead the local authority is responsible for supporting them. This course looks at the special benefit rules for care leavers and the local authority’s responsibilities towards these young people. We will also be covering the new developments in relation to ‘continuing care’.

This half-day course covers:

This essential one-day course gives you an introduction to the work capability assessment that applies to employment and support allowance (ESA) and universal credit (UC). Assuming little or no experience of these benefits, the course gives you an understanding of the main rules for people whose health or disability limits their ability to work. It also helps you to deal with common problems.

The course covers:

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Nearly two thousand households in the social rented sector were evicted for rent arrears in Scotland last year. Yet large amounts of housing benefit went unclaimed with 1.4 million households in the UK not getting the help they should.

This practical course is aimed at housing and support workers who need to maximise housing benefit and minimise rent arrears. It will help you spot potential problems and signpost on for further advice. You will also learn how universal credit helps with rent and prepare for dealing with those changes.

The course covers:

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Becoming a carer of a disabled person often means a drop in household income. Carers may be thinking of leaving work or trying to combine work with care.

This one-day course gives an introduction to the main benefits available for carers and explains how to maximise income through benefit checks. It will help you support clients in making decisions about what to claim in or out of work.

Older people commonly do not claim all they are entitled to. This course gives you an introduction to pension credit and aims to help you with effective benefit checks to maximise income.

This one-day course equips advisers and frontline workers who are new to benefits with a basic knowledge of social security benefits and tax credits and explains which ones further and higher education students can claim.

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This is essential training if you are starting off as a welfare rights adviser or need a good understanding of the benefits system. It introduces you to the key resources and skills you need and takes you through the main benefits in detail. Learning is through a mix of elearning and face-to-face training.

This course looks at benefit issues where there is social work involvement with a child and their family. It covers kinship care and children looked after by the local authority away from home or away from birth parents eg, in a residential unit or with foster carers.

It provides an opportunity to consider the implications of recent changes in kinship care assistance and look at the new Scottish Government guidance, Support for Kinship Care. Participants will also have a chance to look at what universal credit means for kinship carers and for local authorities.