Category: Other

Parent and carers of autistic children who are based in London or in the Midlands are invited to join our free workshop about Autism and Employment next week. You don’t need a diagnosis for your child in order to attend.

This workshop has been developed to help parent carers understand some of the challenges autistic people face when looking for employment opportunities.

You’ll hear more about social communication barriers, stigmas, and misconceptions. And you’ll also discover some tips and strategies to help you support your autistic child and young person on their journey to meaningful employment.

If you live in London

Our free workshop for London families takes place on Tuesday 27 June, between 2-3pm. This workshop has now taken place.

If you live in the Midlands

For families based in the Midlands you’re invited to join us on Thursday 29 June between 2-3pm. Book your free place.

About these workshops

Commissioned by NHS England’s Workforce, Training and Education Team, these workshops are part of the Autism Central Peer Education Programme. This new programme aims to offer families and carers of autistic people high-quality and accessible autism information, education and coaching and is co-delivered by autistic people, families and carers.

Contact and Ambitious about Autism are the London and Midlands Regional Hub partners for the programme.

The parent-led campaign, supported by Contact, to unlock Child Trust Funds for disabled young people in England and Wales who lack mental capacity has been in on BBC Breakfast News again today.

The BBC is shining a light on the extra unfairness for those with £6,000+ savings in Child Trust Funds who will receive a reduction in Universal Credit payments, even though they can’t access their savings. A ‘double whammy’ for Change Makers Claire and her son Ryan from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who spoke out to highlight the situation.

Teddy Nyahasha, CEO of Child Trust Fund provider One Family is part of the parent-led campaign group. He believes making families go to court to access their child’s savings infringes on his duty to the consumer. His company has released £3.6m from 1,000 accounts without involving the Court of Protection. This why it’s really important that families speak to their provider first.

Our Head of Campaigns Una Summerson also appeared in a film shown on BBC Morning Live at 9.25 today. Una spoke about the unfairness of 80,000 Child Trust Fund savings accounts being locked to those who lack capacity. She appeared alongside Change Maker Maria and her son Ryan from Crawley.  

Why we are campaigning

Tens of thousands of disabled teenagers have a Child Trust Fund savings account. The average account value is estimated to be around £2,000.

However, some young people are unable to manage their money as they lack mental capacity. This means their parents have to apply through the Court of Protection to access their savings on their behalf. This is a lengthy, costly and complex process, which many families are not willing to go through.

We are campaigning for a simplified process for families to access their child’s money in these cases.

Una Summerson said: “More and more disabled young people are being locked out of their Child Trust Fund savings each day. This is often money that their parents and grandparents have saved for their future. It’s truly shocking that they can’t enjoy the benefit of that money.

“The average account value is estimated to be around £2,000. Some are lucky to have more, and they face a double whammy of unfairness. They can’t enjoy their savings and also face a reduction in the financial support they could receive via Universal Credit.

“We need a solution to this urgently. There is an already established way of parents managing the money of children who lack capacity through the DWP appointee scheme.”

How do I find my Child Trust Fund provider?

Find you Child Trust Fund provider before your child turns 18 using the government website. You’ll need basic information like their National Insurance number. Then speak to your provider about how to access the savings.

If your child is 18 years old or over, you won’t be able to get this information without their consent. And if they are unable to give consent because they do not have mental capacity, you will need the Court of Protection order to investigate and report to them, so you can get access.

What should I do if you live in Scotland?

You can access funds held in Child Trust Funds or Junior Individual Savings Account (JISA’s) through the Access to Funds Scheme (Scotland). Before making an application, you should contact the Access to Funds team on 01324 677140. Or you can email OPGATF@scotcourts.gov.uk to discuss your individual circumstances

Join our Facebook Live on 19 June at 2pm

To help affected families, we’re hosting a special Facebook Live Q&A session on 19 June.

You’ll be able to ask questions directly to Child Trust Fund experts Philip Warford, managing director of Renaissance Legal, and Myra O’Neill, head of customer services at Foresters Financial.

5-11 June is Carers Week – a week that shines a spotlight on the vital role unpaid carers play in our communities.

Recent research shows that that unpaid carers – including parent carers – are providing more hours of care now than they were 10 years ago. Reduced support services such as respite care, physiotherapy, occupational and speech and language therapy, as well as mental health services means parent carers have been left to do more often complex care in their homes themselves and less able to combine work and caring.

Parent carers are at the heart of everything we do at Contact

As well as being here to support parent carers with our information, advice and support services for families, we campaign to tackle the inequalities parent carers face and raise awareness of the invaluable work they do caring for their children and young people with additional needs. Our current campaigns include:

And as the Department for Education’s delivery partner supporting parent carer participation in England, we also like to shout about the amazing work parent carers do as members of their local parent carer forums across England.

Watch our animation to find out more about us.

Voluntary carers will soon have the right to take up to one week of unpaid leave a year to fulfil their caring responsibilities.

The Carer’s Leave Act 2023, which received Royal Assent last week, grants the new entitlement to all employees, regardless of how long they’ve been working for a company.

Unpaid carers – which includes anyone providing or arranging care for a relative or dependent – will be able to take the unpaid leave in half or full days.

The government expects the legislation to come into force in 2024. The Act applies in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland, where employment law is devolved.

What are my current rights to unpaid leave?

Parents have the right to up to four weeks’ parental leave a year to care for their children. This is usually unpaid, though some employers have more generous provisions.

While parents usually have to take this in one-week blocks, you can take parental leave a day at a time if your child gets Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

To be eligible for parental leave, you must have been working for a company for at least one year. You must also give at least 21 days’ notice for any leave you take.

Employees are also entitled to time off for dependents to deal with any immediate situations.

Our DinoDay Stomp & Roar Challenge has started, and we have hundreds of families across the UK taking on 19 activities this month to help us transform the lives of disabled children and their families.

Thank you to all the roar-some families taking part

It’s the first time we’ve run a challenge for DinoDay and the response has blown us away.  Many of the families taking part have disabled children themselves and are doing a whole host of fun activities – from visiting 19 parks and trying 19 new foods to scooting 19k.

The challenge has raised a whopping £9k so far, and we’re hoping to reach £20k by the end of June – can you help us get there?

Children in green DinoDay t-shirts that are taking part in the Stomp & Roar challenge.

It’s not too late to join the fun!

There’s still time to get involved in DinoDay this June and be part of #TeamDinoDay.

All you have to do is choose a family-friendly activity to take on – it’s totally up to you what you do, as long as the number 19 is involved!

You’ll get a free DinoDay t-shirt for your mini-roarer and an activity tracker when you sign up. We’ve already sent out hundreds of t-shirts, so we have run out of the smaller sizes, but why not get a larger t-shirt they can wear for many DinoDays to come!

1,500 people have joined our DinoDay Facebook group and are busy sharing their challenges in a friendly and supportive environment.

Get in touch

For more information about DinoDay or to ask any questions you may have about fundraising for Contact please email fundraising@contact.org.uk or read our DinoDay FAQs.

Schools in England can use lunch parcels or voucher options to ensure they provide free school meals to those children entitled to them and on the school roll, the minister for schools has confirmed in a written response to our campaign letter.

Minister Nick Gibb MP confirmed that maintained schools and academies have a duty under the Education Act 1996 to provide nutritious, free meals to pupils to eligible pupils wherever they receive education. This applies both in school and at home.

“The Department expects schools to act reasonably in ensuring that their food provision accounts for medical, dietary, and cultural needs,” he added. “Parents are advised to speak to their local authority to consider suitable alternatives in line with the guidance on long term illnesses.”

Our Free School Meals campaign is now calling for the government to include this instruction in its free school meals guidance.

Parents successfully using our template letter to get free school meals

We are pleased to hear that some parents have successfully used our template email asking their child’s school or college to issue food vouchers.

Here are three reasons why you might want to use our free school meal template email:

1. You don’t know where to start or how to ask for a reasonable adjustment to ensure your child can get their free school meals entitlement.

2. It works! The letter is based on what the law says (some parents have even received backdated vouchers as a result).

3. You can send them knowing that other parents up and down the country, in your position, are sending them too.

If you have successfully used our template letter to get an alternative to a free school meal for your disabled child, we’d love to hear from you. We want to tell your story and use the schools that are acting in line with their equality duties as examples to those schools still refusing to make reasonable adjustments. Get in touch by emailing press@contact.org.uk  or Imogen.Steele@contact.org.uk

Next steps for the free school meals campaign

Last month, we published new research revealing that a third of eligible disabled children are missing out on free school meals.

We’ve since been busy meeting with MPs and government officials to find a solution. We are also pleased to be working with the Mayor of London’s office, who got in touch following a story in iNews about disabled children missing out on free school meals.

As part of the next stage of the campaign, we are interested in hearing from parents with young children missing out on free meals in England.  Please get in touch if your child meets the following criteria:

  1. They are going into reception in September or are currently in reception or Y1. 
  2. They already have a formal Education Otherwise Than At School (EOTAS) package in place.
  3. They are not on the school roll with medical home tuition (not elective education).

Please get in touch if you meet these criteria. You can remain anonymous if you wish.

Join the campaign

If your child has been missing out on their free school meals, join the campaign group today by becoming a member of the parent-led campaign Facebook Group. There are now 1,800 parent carers in the group.

Contact’s annual awareness and fundraising event – DinoDay – is coming up on 19 June.

Alongside our exciting Stomp & Roar fundraising challenge, we’re also inviting primary schools to get involved by encouraging their pupils to wear ‘Dinosaur green’ on any day in June for a suggested donation of £1 per child.

Get. Set. Roar!!!!

Getting involved couldn’t be simpler. Schools can download our DinoDay information pack for schools filled with teaching resources, fun dino-themed activities, and lesson plans about disability and inclusion to help make DinoDay a roaring success! 

The money raised will help Contact be there for even more families with disabled children who need our life-changing information, advice and support.

Win a box of sensory toys worth £100!

Any school that raises money for Contact this DinoDay can enter our competition to win a box of sensory toys worth £100 from Fledglings.

Ask your child’s school to get involved

You can help raise awareness of Contact and DinoDay by asking your child’s school to join the fun this June.

Send them our DinoDay information pack filled with tips for making DinoDay a roaring success. We’ve also created a template email you could send to the school.

Have you joined our Stomp & Roar DinoDay challenge yet?

Register your interest in becoming part of #TeamDinoDay and we’ll send you a free t-shirt and activity tracker to stick on your fridge!

Walk 19 miles, draw 19 dinosaurs or visit the park 19 times – whatever you choose to do as part of our DinoDay Challenge is up to you – as long as the number 19 is involved! Then ask your friends and family to sponsor you so we can support more disabled children and their families.

Celebrating girl wearing DinoDay t-shirt

Get in touch

For more information about DinoDay or to ask any questions you may have about fundraising for Contact please email fundraising@contact.org.uk or read our DinoDay FAQs.

The ideas you have come up with to take part in our DinoDay Facebook Challenge this year are simply incredible!

From walking around the local duck pond 19 times, doing 19 laps of the living room pretending to be a dinosaur and visiting 19 new places to painting dinosaurs on 19 rocks to leave around town for your children to find later, going for 19 short walks, drawing 19 dinosaurs and baking a batch of 19 delicious dino-shaped biscuits.

You are all Dino-mite!

Just 8 days after launching our DinoDay Challenge, we’re thrilled that so many of you have registered to take part and get your free, exclusive DinoDay t-shirt and Challenge Tracker.

Over 180 of you have already set up your own DinoDay Facebook Challenge and more than 1,200 have joined our DinoDay Facebook group and are already busy sharing ideas, photos – and generally having fun and supporting each other.

Why not give it a Tri-ceratops?

There’s still plenty of time to get involved in DinoDay this June and be part of #TeamDinoDay. All you have to do is:

Raising funds for Contact this DinoDay means we will be able to support even more disabled children and their families when they need us. 

Find out more about DinoDay, how your family can get involved and the story behind it.


We have been overwhelmed by everyone’s support to help disabled children access their own savings before it’s too late.

A huge thank you to over 1200 supporters who have taken action on the Child Trust Fund campaign writing to their MP to raise awareness and call for change.

Tens of thousands of disabled teenagers have a Child Trust Fund savings account, with the average account value estimated to be around £2,000. However, families of young people who are unable to manage their money as they lack mental capacity have to apply through the Court of Protection to access their savings. This is a lengthy, costly and complex undertaking.

We have been receiving your MP responses and will reply to those in the coming weeks. We will highlight our concerns about the government’s proposals to address the issue.

Government proposals won’t work for majority

Una Summerson, Head of Campaigns at Contact, said: “The government says it plans to digitise and streamline the Court of Protection process. But we are concerned this does not go far enough and that no timescales have been given. In addition most of the families we support do not want deputyship, which comes with added responsibility, cost and administration. That’s why we are calling on the government to give families an alternative way of accessing their savings.”

Parent campaigner Andrew Turner added: “There is already a tried and tested way for families to manage their child’s money – the DWP appointee scheme. Many parents are entrusted by this scheme to manage benefits in excess of the savings held in the Child Trust Fund account. That’s why it makes perfect sense to expand the scope of the scheme to cover Child Trust Funds and Junior ISAs.”

Savings lost each week

Andrew has today launched a lost benefit calculator to illustrate the amount of savings being lost each week as more and more Child Trust Fund accounts of young people with learning disabilities are locked. We hope it will act as an incentive to the government to act now before it’s too late.

Join the campaign and write to your MP today

Affected families

John Roberts, dad to Joseph aged 18, is still waiting for a response from his MP.

“Like many parents of children with learning disabilities who have turned 18, we are stuck with what to do with the Child Trust Fund we created when our son was born as part of the CTF initiative set up by Gordon Brown. 

“Joseph is unable to manage his own financial affairs and is therefore unable to gain access to the money in his CTF, which is held at HSBC. I understand that the only way to gain access to those funds is for either my wife or I to obtain financial deputyship on his behalf. This currently has an application cost of £371, plus £494 if the court decides the case needs a hearing. There is also an annual general supervision fee of £320 (reduced to £35 for minimal supervision), plus a £100 assessment fee for a new deputy. The process is complicated and we have been advised that it is better to apply with a lawyer, for which the lowest fee we have been quoted is £1600.

“For most people in our situation the complexity of this process is appalling and the cost totally prohibitive as it is likely most CTF’s will not contain sufficient funds to cover the above costs.

“My parents have been paying money into their grandchildren’s CTFs every year as a birthday present. Our daughter will be able to access those funds to pay for whatever she chooses when she turns 18 in three years time. Unfortunately, Joseph can’t, and currently no-one can access the funds unless we apply for deputyship. Joseph has no other assets and is unlikely to have any, other than his disability allowances (DLA/Mobility/PIP) during his life, so financial deputyship, and the on-going costs associated with it, will only ever be needed for this one transaction.

“Surely we can find a solution to ensure that we do not penalise our most vulnerable young people.”

19 June is DinoDay, our annual fundraising event to raise vital funds so we can be there for even more UK families with disabled children. 

This year, we’d love as many of you as possible to be part of #TeamDinoDay, and it couldn’t be easier.

Simply: 

Get a free t-shirt and printed activity tracker

When you complete our registration form, you’ll get a free child’s DinoDay t-shirt and printed activity tracker to make sure your challenge is a roaring success!

Child in a park jumping in the air wearing a green DinoDay t-shirt

Join our #TeamDinoDay Facebook group

When you register, you’ll also be invited to join our DinoDay Stomp and Roar Facebook Group.

There, you can meet other families taking part and find helpful tips and ideas of things to do. And you’ll also find some dinosaur-related activities to do!

Could you ask your child’s primary school to get involved in DinoDay?

We’re inviting schools to participate by asking their children to wear green to school for the day for a suggested donation of £1 per child.

Any school that raises money for us this DinoDay can also enter our competition to win a box of sensory toys worth £100 from our Fledglings shop.

Why your help would be Dino-mite!

By taking on the DinoDay Challenge and raising funds for Contact, you’ll be helping us continue to transform the lives of families with disabled children with our vital services and information.

The inspiration behind DinoDay

DinoDay was inspired by a little boy called Cameron Mathieson and his amazing family.

With Contact’s help, successfully challenged the government through the courts to make things fairer for families with disabled children.

The money you raise this June will also help us campaign to tackle the inequalities that families with disabled children face, like we did for Mathieson’s family and the thousands of others.

Get in touch

For more information or to ask any questions about fundraising for Contact, please email fundraising@contact.org.uk or read our DinoDay FAQs.

We are delighted to open our new e-publications library containing our five most popular guides for parent carers. We’ll be adding to our e-publication list over the coming months.

One downloaded, you can read our e-pubs even when you are offline.

They are:

How to transfer an e-publication to your e-reader app or device

If you have an e-reader app on your smartphone, it’s as simple as downloading the file from the e-publications page and opening it on your phone.

If you use an e-reader device, such as a Kindle or Kobo, we recommended searching the internet for instructions on “adding an epub file to [device name].” It should be quite straightforward. For example, if you have a Kindle, you can an e-publication to your device via the Kindle smartphone app, by email, via an Amazon account or via USB.

See more instructions, including how to download an e-reader app on your phone.

Why read ebooks?

We hope our e-publications will give you another way to access our information and advice from our factsheets and parent guides.

The benefits of e-publications include:

Help with e-publications

If you’re new to e-publications, visit our page to find out how you can view an e-publication on your smartphone, tablet or Kindle.

The national roll-out of managed migration – the process of replacing legacy benefits with Universal Credit for existing claimants – will extend to the Greater Manchester, East Yorkshire and Humber areas from June 2023, before expanding to the rest of the country.

Roll-out initially to “tax credits-only” claimants

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed at a recent stakeholder meeting that the latest roll-out will apply only to people in these areas who are “tax credits-only” claimants. This means people who are getting tax credits, but who do not receive any other legacy benefits.

The DWP had already announced that tax credits-only claimants in Avon, Somerset and Gloucester would have to migrate to Universal Credit from April. Tax credits-only claimants in East London and Cheshire followed suit in May.

Britain-wide roll-out to within the year

Following the latest roll-out in June, the DWP intends to eventually roll out managed migration to tax credits-only claimants in all other parts of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) this year. There is no precise timetable for this, thought the DWP plans to migrate tax credits-only claimants onto Universal Credit:

And in 2024/25, managed migration will roll out nationally to claimants on:

People who receive only income-related Employment and Support Allowance, and no other legacy benefits, won’t be migrated onto Universal Credit until 2028.

It is important to note that despite the name, managed migration does not mean you will be moved onto Universal Credit automatically. Instead, you will have to make a claim.

Other pilot areas

The newly-announced national roll-out to tax credits-only claimants — and, eventually, claimants of other legacy benefits — runs alongside the introduction of managed migration in a small number of pilot areas that started in May 2022.

In these pilot areas, claimants of all legacy benefits are moving onto Universal Credit. The government has not announced plans to add more pilot areas to the existing areas, which are:

Your questions answered

To help you understand the roll-out and how it might affect you, we’ve tried to anticipate some questions you might have.

We corrected this article on Friday 5 May 2023. The roll-out of managed migration to the areas of Avon, Somerset and Gloucester, East London and Cheshire is to tax credits-only claimants and not to claimants of all legacy benefits, as we published initially.

Related information

Today, Friday 28 April, is Undiagnosed Children’s Day, an important campaign to raise awareness of undiagnosed genetic conditions.

Approximately 6,000 children are born in the UK each year with a syndrome without a name – a genetic condition so rare that is likely to remain undiagnosed. Children living without a diagnosis often have lots of medical appointments, and their parents can worry that they won’t get the support they’re entitled to.

That’s why it’s so important that everyone working with undiagnosed children understands the key issues and that families get the right help.

Find our more about Undiagnosed Children’s Day 2023.

Our support for families living without a diagnosis

On our website you can read about:

Many entitlements are based on the amount of care your child needs, rather than having a named diagnosis. This includes support from social services, benefits such as Disability Living Allowance and Personal Independence Payment, and support in education.

Meeting other parents

If your child is living without a diagnosis, you’re not alone! Other parents with disabled children can be a great source of companionship and support. And even if your children don’t share a condition, many parents find that the issues they face are the same.

One way of meeting other families is by joining a local support group, many of which are not based around a single condition.

You can also find parents across the UK in our private Facebook group, a safe space to talk to other families about a whole host of topics, from behaviour, eating and sleeping to education, health and social care.

This month, the National Living Wage (NLW) for over 23s increased from £9.50 to £10.42 an hour.

While this is good news for earners, yet again the government’s failure to raise the Carer’s Allowance earnings threshold will see carers forced to give up work or lose this vital benefit.

What is the earnings limit?

The earnings limit is a rule that prevents carers earning over £139 a week while claiming Carer’s Allowance.

In calculating your earnings for Carer’s Allowance purposes, you can make certain deductions from your gross wages.

If, after making these deductions, your earnings are even 1p over £139 a week, you will lose all of your Carer’s Allowance.

How does the NLW rise affect Carer’s Allowance claimants

We know that many carers want to work alongside their caring responsibilities. Many carers work part-time to balance both roles.

A carer earning the National Living Wage could, until April, work up to 13.5 hours a week while still receiving Carer’s Allowance. Their earnings would come to £128.25 a week – below the earnings limit, which was then £132.

But the same carer will now find their earnings are £140 a week, above the earnings limit of £139. Unless they can reduce their hours or make certain deductions, they will lose their Carer’s Allowance.

The government has continually raised the earnings limit only by a rate that falls below the corresponding rate in the rise in NLW. As a result, carers are losing their earning potential year on year.

The earnings limit must rise to £166.72

We want the government to rise the earnings limit to at least £166.72 a week – that’s 16 hours’ work on the NLW.

This would allow carers to continue working and claiming Carer’s Allowance, while meeting the 16 hours-a-week working thresholds in Employement and Support Allowance (ESA) and Working Tax Credit.

Ask your MP to take up this issue: tweet or email your MP using our templates.

Related information

Thanks to National Lottery funding we are able to put on three ‘Better Together Through Sport’ activity days in West Yorkshire this summer.

We’ll use the funding of just under £10k to work in partnership with local Wakefield sport venue, Disability Sport Yorkshire, to run three events focusing on sport for children and young people with additional needs during the summer holidays.

We hope the weekly disability sport sessions will help reduce isolation and increase family confidence by enabling families to try out new sporting activities in a safe environment, make friends and share experiences with other families.

Watch our video about what difference sport can make to disabled children and young people.

Last year, parent carers that attend our Better Together events told us that they feel less isolated (86%), more confident (75%) and more informed about how to get the support they need (70%). Three quarters of the children and young people who attended said they made new friends and all of them said they would like to try the activities on offer again!

Hannah Hassouni in Contact’s fundraising team says: “We’re really looking forward to working with Disability Sport Yorkshire this summer and encouraging children with additional needs in the region to get involved and try something new.

“Families we support tell us that leisure and play opportunities for their children – after school, in the holidays and at weekends – are extremely limited and barriers like accessibility and cost can get in the way. Children with additional needs who are not given sporting opportunities can miss out on the physical, mental and social benefits that taking part in sport brings and their emotional and physical wellbeing can be negatively impacted which can contribute to their social isolation and lack of confidence. And because Contact’s family workers will also be on hand at these weekly sessions, parent carers will be able to talk to us directly and get direct access to Contact’s trusted information, advice and support.”

Read our Holidays, Play and Leisure webpage.


New figures exclusively revealed by the BBC show that 80,683 disabled young people in England and Wales will miss out on Child Trust Fund savings worth £209,801,255.

Parent campaigner Andrew Turner, working with Contact, has calculated the total loss of money to disabled young people who lack mental capacity over the course of the Child Trust Fund scheme maturity. Over 20,000 accounts have already been locked with £48 million of savings in them. The average account has £2,280 in it and the losses will grow during the next six years.

We need your help to unlock them

That’s why we are calling on supporters and families to help us call for urgent action to stop thousands of savings accounts being locked.

While non-disabled youngsters are enjoying the benefits of their savings which they can access on their 18th birthday, many with a learning disability cannot.

Due to Mental Capacity rules, the families of young people with learning disabilities unable to manage their money, have to apply through the court of protection to access their Child Trust Funds. This is a lengthy, costly and complex process.

Parent campaigner, Andrew Turner, said: “The scale of this issue is truly shocking. Hundreds of millions of pounds of savings for disabled young people could be locked away for good. Many families will not have the capacity or funds to use the Court of Protection process and the savings of young disabled people will be locked away forever. The government must act to avoid thousands of locked accounts in the coming years.”

Appointee scheme could allow safe access to Child Trust Funds

Andrew Turner, together with Contact and Child Trust Fund providers are calling on the government to:

Una Summerson, Head of Campaigns at disability charity Contact, said: “During this cost of living crisis it is more important than ever that disabled young people can access their own money. Preparing for adulthood is a challenging time. Forcing families to go through a complex court process at the same time is adding too much pressure.

“We are urging families with disabled teenagers to find out who their Child Trust Fund provider is, before their child turns 18. They can use the government website to find out. Then speak to the provider or bank about your situation. There are some providers such as One Family and Foresters who are helping young disabled people to access their Child Trust Fund savings without going through the court of protection process.”

Sadly not all providers are doing the same, which is why we will continue to push government to use the already established appointee scheme for safe access to savings. We need your help to push for this change – take action and email your MP today.

Andrew Turner added: “Back in September 2020 my disabled son Mikey was locked out of his Child Trust Fund. He simply wanted to buy an adapted bike with his money and his life-limiting condition meant that time was of the essence. The Child Trust Fund was his only financial asset, which made it special. Nobody warned us we would need to go to court when the account matured. When we took advice we were told it would be easier and cheaper for us to wait until Mikey died when we could use a simpler process to reclaim the money. It was deeply upsetting. Three years later, this situation has not changed and more accounts are locked. That’s why the government must resolve this issue urgently.”

Take action today. Find out more about our campaign.

Read the BBC News online report highlighting this issue.

Find out more about Contact’s Change Makers – our programme that puts parent carers at the heart of our policy and campaigns work.

What to do if you have a Child Trust Fund

If your child is under 18 years old, you can find out if they have a Child Trust Fund using the government website here: Child Trust Fund: Find a Child Trust Fund – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). Then speak to your Child Trust Fund provider about your situation. There are some providers such as One Family and Foresters Financial who are helping young disabled people to access their Child Trust Fund savings without going through the court of protection process (using the DWP appointee scheme as a safeguard).

If your child is over 18 years old, you will not be able to get this information without their consent. If they are unable to give consent because they do not have mental capacity, you will need an order from the Court of Protection to investigate and report to them, so you can be given access. Find out more: Child Trust Fund: What happens when your child is 18 – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

In Scotland, applications need to be made to the Office of the Public Guardian in Scotland. And in Northern Ireland, applications need to be made to the Office of Care and Protection.

Visitors to our website advice, callers to our helpline and members of our social media communities are getting the information they need, with 85% feeling more confident as a result.

And 97% of parent carers who use our advice services would recommend them to others.

These are the results of our latest online and helpline bi-annual feedback survey, which ran in March 2023 and had 398 respondents.

“I don’t think I would have known about making a credits-only ESA claim if it hadn’t been for the Facebook group. There’s such a lot of great information and tips on there. The helpline staff are also really knowledgeable and also friendly, which makes it much easier to ask questions.”

Our information and advice services also includes our parent guides and factsheets and Chatbot and live chat service.

Of the respondents to our survey:

“I have used the website and helpline countless times since my daughter was born 16 years ago. Thanks to the advice, we receive the benefits we are entitled to and have ensured that her mainstream education is accessible.”

Thank you to everyone who took part in our survey. The results will help us demonstrate to our funders why their contribution is so important.

Our freephone helpline and all local offices will be unavailable from 5pm today, Thursday 6 April, until 9.30am Wednesday 12 April as Contact closes for the Easter break.

You can find lots of advice and support on our website, and our Chatbot Charlie can help guide you through our information and advice to help you find the support you need quickly and easily, whenever you need it – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Our social media channels and online communities

Our Facebook groups and pages and Twitter channel will not be moderated during the same period as our helpline closure.

If you’re looking for emergency emotional support, you can contact Samaritans at any time: