Let’s stand up for blind young people in these tough times
At the heart of what RLSB offers is hope and support for a life without limits for the blind young people we work with. Hope for 18-year-old Adam who is registered blind. I met Adam last week and he said to me: “I want to be able to hang out with friends and get a job I can enjoy. Just like anyone else would.”
What I worry is that the chance for Adam to live a life without limits is being silently eroded by changes to the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and wide-ranging cuts to services. And Adam’s voice isn’t being heard. So I am speaking up for him and the 7,000 blind and partially sighted young people in London and the south-east.
Changes to the Disability Living Allowance hit young people hard
Last week’s headlines have been full of news of a clash of titans in the House of Lords over changes to the DLA. The efforts of the likes of Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson to slow the bill down to allow more consultation were defeated. Now the legislation is likely to be passed in the House of Commons with a number of hard hitting revisions.
In an effort to cut the working age budget of the DLA by 20% the government have proposed the replacement of DLA with a new Personal Independence Payment.
Part of this change will be a stop to the automatic entitlement to higher rate mobility and a shift in focus to helping people only with the highest mobility needs.
This could very well mean that Adam, who could fall into the lower rate mobility bracket, doesn’t get a mobility allowance. For Adam, this is money for him to be able to get a taxi to college, to see his friends, and hopefully – one day – to work.
What seems odd to me is that at the same time as they are reforming the DLA to get more people off benefits and into work, the coalition is cutting the one thing people with sight impairment need to get to work – money.
Let’s be clear, this money is not a luxury – it is a lifeline for many disabled people. I would be interested to hear how much readers use the mobility allowance to travel to work.
More support, not less, for Adam
This leads me to another point. Even while the mobility allowance has been in place, unemployment among working-aged people in the visually impaired community is unacceptably high. Nine out of 10 sight-impaired people have not worked for more than six months.
So even before you take their mobility allowance away there is a problem. Doing so will likely see the numbers without work rise not fall.
Put this against a backdrop of the highest unemployment levels in 17 years, cuts to youth services like Connexions and the Education Maintenance Allowance, as well as a reprioritisation of local council funding, and Adam faces even more obstacles.
What Adam needs is more support, not less. At RLSB we provide free services such as peer and social groups, which get the young people we work with out of the house, experiencing new things, and giving them new skills to support their ambitions. But what else can be done?
Give automatic entitlement to mobility allowance for anyone registered blind?
Financial incentives for employers who give blind young people work experience?
More money for one-to-one support to help young people with personal presentation, confidence levels and independent living skills?
We want to work in partnership with government and other organisations at all levels to make sure Adam is getting the kind of support he needs to live a life without limits.
If you have a sight impairment, or are the parent of a young person with one, what else would you like to see being offered to help you realise your ambitions and live a life without limits?
By Tom Pey, Chief Executive Officer of RLSB
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