Dosh Winter Newsletter 2019-20

Welcome to the Dosh Money Pack newsletter for Winter 2019-20!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Grace Sodzi, our Dosh Financial Assistant.

Download the full newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

 

This edition includes:

 

 Dosh logo

The Dosh team

 

Dosh News

Car

Safer winter driving

 cost icon - image of tag with picture of coins and paper notes

Funeral costs update

Dosh logo

Dosh Days: our purpose and strategy

 

Benefits updates

Dosh BID and referral form changes

Keeping warm and health this winter

 Bill savings over winter

 10 great disability podcasts

 

Financial Advocacy in Action

January 9th, 2020

Posted In: News and Blogs

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Summer Newsletter 2019

Welcome to the Dosh Money Pack newsletter for Summer 2019!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Grace Calvert, our Dosh Financial Assistant.

Download the full newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

This is a quarterly newsletter and the next one will be out in the summer. If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

 

This edition includes:

 

 Dosh logo

The Dosh team

 

Dosh News

 support

Project 2000

 

Universal Credit update

WCAinfo and PIPinfo – benefits assessment websites

 cost icon - image of tag with picture of coins and paper notes

Supporting energy customers in vulnerable circumstances

 local authority

Council Tax guide

benefits

Support for Mortgage Interest Loan

PIP Benefits

 

Financial Advocacy in Action

August 22nd, 2019

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Dosh Summer Newsletter 2018

dosh logo

Welcome to the Dosh Money Pack newsletter for Summer 2018!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Lia Herbert, our Dosh Financial Assistant and Meike Beckford, Dosh Financial Advocacy Manager.

Download the full newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

This is a quarterly newsletter and the next one will be out in the summer. If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

 

This edition includes:

 

 Dosh logo

The Dosh team

 

Dosh News

 support

Help with PIP claims

 

Universal Credit update

 

New project launched: Your Money. Your Life.

 cost icon - image of tag with picture of coins and paper notes

Care charges explained

 

Dosh money awareness training

 

Financial Advocacy in Action

 

August 2nd, 2018

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Dosh Newsletter Winter 2018

dosh logo

Welcome to the  Dosh Money Pack Newsletter for Winter 2018!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Lia Herbert, our Dosh Financial Assistant.

Download the full newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

This is a quarterly newsletter and the next one will be out in the summer. If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

 

This edition includes:

 

 Dosh logo

The Dosh team

 

Dosh News

 Account

Care and support funding

 

Measuring the impact of Dosh

 

Dosh Business Plan

 appointee

Becoming an appointee

 

Training from Dosh

 

Changes to benefit rates

 

Financial Advocacy in Action

March 19th, 2018

Posted In: News and Blogs, Uncategorized

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Dosh Newsletter Autumn 2017

Dosh logo

Welcome to the Dosh Money Pack Newsletter for Autumn 2017!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Lia Herbert, our new Dosh Financial Assistant.

Download the full newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

This is a quarterly newsletter and the next one will be out in the summer. If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

This edition includes:

 Dosh logo

The Dosh team

  

Dosh News

   

Dosh’s 10th anniversary

review

Annual review 2017: The Results!

 

Housing Benefit in supported housing

 

Changes to PIP criteria

Car

Blue Badge Scheme – changes on eligibility under PIP

 Story

Financial Advocacy in Action

December 11th, 2017

Posted In: News and Blogs

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Lynn’s story for #FinCap week

This is Part 3 of our series for Financial Capability Week. You can read Part One and Part Two to learn more about the work we are doing in this area.

Budgeting can be a really difficult subject for people with a learning disability, as numbers can seem really abstract. It takes a lot of mental steps to connect £10 on a piece of paper with a ten pound note with an understanding of what that can get you in a shop. Let alone thinking about ‘imaginary’ money on a bank card, what happens if you spend more than you have or how interest works!

For many people with a learning disability, the challenges of managing a budget are taken over by their support provider. Because money is an area where people could be very vulnerable to risk or abuse, many support teams safeguard people by having processes such as keeping their bank card and money in a safe, tracking their spending and receipts or only giving them a certain amount of money each day.

Whilst this ensures that people are kept safe, it stops them needing to learn, make mistakes or develop their independence around money.

Dosh has supported Lynn for a number of years and seen her develop her confidence and capability around money. In particular, we have encouraged her to build skills around decision making so that she feels in control of what is happening with her money.

We’ve done this by taking the different steps of making a decision – deciding you want something, looking at options, weighing up pros and cons – and breaking them down into more accessible steps. For example, when working out if something is affordable we use the Money Plan game. This is a really visual, accessible version of a budget where Lynn can move physical counters around a board and decide what she wants to prioritise.

In this way, making financial decisions doesn’t have to involve numbers. It also helps her think not only ‘do I have enough money’ but also ‘what decision will I not be able to make if I make this one?’ The Money Plan game has helped Lynn with everything from picking her weekly activities to deciding to save for a holiday.

Lynn’s support team have also worked with her to increase her independence with her bank card. She recently began to take responsibility for the card, keeping it safe in her room and taking it out with her. She uses the cash machine independently and buys things on her card so that she doesn’t have to worry about carrying large amounts of cash on her. This has also increased her independence as she isn’t relying on staff to ensure she has the correct change.

As Lynn’s story shows, there are lots of imaginative ways to use accessible communication techniques and pre-existing technology to increase people’s financial capability and independence. We don’t need to view budgeting in such a traditional way as only being based on numbers and spreadsheets. Financial capability can be about confidence, attitude, being supported to understand the steps involved in decision making, and many more things.

Rather than having a one-size-fits-all approach to the problems and solutions people with a learning disability face around money, we try to empower each person to set goals and find answers that work for them.

November 17th, 2017

Posted In: News and Blogs, Uncategorized

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Dosh Newsletter Summer 2017

We have published the Dosh money pack newsletter for Summer 2017!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Katie Scott, Dosh Financial Assistant.

Download the full newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

This is a quarterly newsletter and the next one will be out in the summer. If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

This edition includes:

 Dosh logo

The Dosh team

  

Dosh News

 

How to deal with debt and avoid it in the future

 

Are you paying too much for your utility bills?

 Cinema

Leisure village opens in Ely – what can it do for us?

 Benefits

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) tips

 Electricity

Do we need PAT testing in people’s homes?

 Safeguarding

The NHS Safeguarding app

Support provider

How we work with support providers

 Story

Financial Advocacy in Action

September 28th, 2017

Posted In: News and Blogs, Uncategorized

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Going the extra mile

Supporting someone to get the Right to Reside

By Maddy Hubbard, Financial Advocate  for Greater Manchester and the North West

James* is a young man with a learning disability that Dosh supports in the South of England. Most of the people Dosh supports have lived in the UK for a long time and are allowed to claim benefits, but James is Spanish and came to live in England four years ago. James had been to school in England, his father was British and his whole life was now based here. Despite this, when we applied for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) we were told that he didn’t have ‘Right to Reside’ and so wasn’t entitled to the benefit.

Right to Reside’ is a legal term about whether someone has the right to be in England and claim income-related benefits. It is decided based on if someone has worked in the UK and got ‘Retained Worker Status’. As James is not able to work due to his learning disability, Dosh were told that he was therefore not entitled to the benefit. Without ESA, James had to live on just Housing Benefit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) which was making life very hard for him. James couldn’t afford to live a good life and was getting into debt.

Dosh worked with James’s social worker and his support team to challenge this decision. James’s Financial Advocate sent the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) lots of evidence about James’s learning disability. We explained that he wasn’t able to work, which was why we were applying for ESA, but proved that his father was British and that the UK was his home. The DWP responded saying that before they could look at information about his disability, James needed to pass the Right to Reside test so they couldn’t award him ESA.

James’s Financial Advocate then got in touch with their local Legal Centre and was given free advice by an Immigration Lawyer. The Lawyer explained how Dosh could appeal the decision and the evidence they would need to provide to the courts.  This was the first time Dosh had dealt with immigration law and it is very complicated. To put it simply, if James couldn’t get Retained Worker Status himself then we needed to prove that one of his parents was a European worker in the UK and had therefore passed it on to him. It wasn’t enough that his father was British, we had to show that he had lived and worked in Europe before coming back to the UK to work.

Dosh worked closely with James’s father to get the evidence together and make a case to the Department for Work and Pensions. We sent in the appeal and were expecting to have to go to a tribunal, but after only a week we got a letter from the DWP.

Eventually, almost a year after first applying, the DWP agreed that James should get ESA!

The decision means that James will get almost £10,000 as a backpayment of the benefit that he should have had this year and he will now have enough money to live on. His father said

“I can’t thank you enough for all the work and stress you have been through to achieve this. Apart from the fact cited in the letter, it was undoubtedly your incredible perseverance over the last year or so that has impressed the authorities.”

At Dosh, we will always go the extra mile for the people we support, even if it means teaching ourselves immigration law! If you would like support about this or anything else related to your money or benefits then please get in touch to find out how we can support you.

November 3rd, 2016

Posted In: News and Blogs

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Dosh Newsletter Autumn 2016

dosh logo

We have just published the Dosh money pack newsletter for Autumn 2016!

This edition of the newsletter was put together by Katie Scott, Dosh Financial Assistant.

Download the newsletter to read all our updates and tweet us @DoshTweets or contact us to tell us what you think.

This is a quarterly newsletter and the next one will be out in early 2017. If you have ideas for future newsletter pieces, please get in touch!

 

This edition includes:

Dosh logo

The Dosh team

new

Dosh News

gifts

Giving gifts on someone else’s behalf

support

Paying towards the cost of your care

Payment

Who should pay for Personal Protective Equipment?

law

Making a will

hot

Warm Home Discount

choice

Why are we scared of SDS?

happy

Financial advocacy in action stories

November 2nd, 2016

Posted In: News and Blogs

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