A young pregnant mother, 21 years old, had been in receipt of Employment Support Allowance, until November last year, when she failed to attend a meeting with her work coach at the job centre, which is a requirement of being placed in the work related activity group of ESA. The young woman has Aspergers and anger issues and is usually accompanied to her meetings by her Grandmother, but she was unfortunately unwell herself and couldn’t attend. Missing the appointment meant that the ESA payments were stopped immediately. There is an agency now helping the family to get the payments reinstated but it will take some time for any payments to arrive again.
This young woman’s father had died when she was 11 years old, and she continued to live with her mother but that relationship had completely broken down by the time she was 16 so her Grandparents took her in and looked after her, which is where she still is today. The loss of the ESA payments has put a huge strain on the whole family, so we agreed to send across £150 to be split between the Grandparents and the young woman.