I can come to your workplace to deliver any of these one day courses to your staff. Each of them can be run as a standalone course, but can also be booked as multi-day block to give your staff team a thorough grounding in how to help your clients manage on benefits. Please get in touch to discus how I can help.
- Welfare Benefits Overview
This course provides a clear overview of Universal Credit. By the end of the day you will know broadly how UC works and how to check if your client is on the right amount of UC. The course will cover common problems that can arise and what you can practically do to help your clients successfully manage a UC claim.
2. Understanding Universal Credit
This course provides a clear overview of Universal Credit. By the end of the day you will know broadly how UC works, who needs to claim UC – including what your client should do if they are told to migrate to UC, how it fits with other benefits and what problems could arise. It will also look at what you can practically do to help your clients successfully claim and manage a UC claim.
3. Sickness and disability benefits: ESA, Universal Credit and PIP assessments
This course will help you if your clients rely on sickness or disability benefits. It will give you an understanding of who can still get ESA, how UC treats people who are sick and how someone’s sickness or disability is assessed by ESA, UC and PIP. It will examine the main problem areas and give you knowledge and confidence to help your clients to claim and keep these benefits.
4. Paying the rent: Universal Credit rent element and Housing Benefit
This course for anyone who supports people in rented accommodation. It looks in detail at when someone can claim UC or HB to help with their housing costs, how they are assessed and paid, and what you can do to help your clients safeguard their home.
5. Managing a Universal Credit claim
UC aims to encourage claimants into full time work. This course looks at the work-seeking people have to do to keep their UC, what happens if they cannot seek work – for example if they have ill health – and at how working affects their UC. The day examines the UC work ‘conditionality’ rules to enable your clients to better manage their claim and at the impacts of your client failing to do what they supposed to do. If you help people on UC this course will help you by looking at simple, practical steps that you can do to help them manage their claim.
6. Challenging benefit decisions
This course explores what DWP decisions can be challenged, when and how. It covers a range of strategies and options, from preventing poor decisions, asking for a supersession, negotiating the mandatory reconsideration maze through to how the appeal system works.
7. Pension age benefits
This course is a solid introduction to the benefits which can be claimed by people over pension age. It covers important topics such as what happens to benefits when the claimant reaches pension age and what to advise if their partner is still under pension age.
8. Benefits & coming to the UK
This course is aimed at advisers who help people who need to claim benefits but have lived abroad or who do not have British nationality. This introductory day covers the main benefits presence and residence conditions, Public Funds restrictions and the special rules for EU nationals since Brexit.