Latest news with #cerebralPalsy
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Herculean effort underway by 150 volunteers to transform Norfolk family's home
They say it takes a village, and that's exactly what happened when 150 volunteers rose to the challenge of helping a family in need. Toby Fletcher is 16 years old and lives with his mum, Sarah, and siblings in Foulden, between Swaffham and Brandon. He has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and dystonia, requiring round-the-clock care and support. And to make everyday life a little easier for him and his family, a major home renovation is underway – including the addition of a specially adapted downstairs bedroom and wet room. Tony Everett, volunteer, and Sarah Fletcher (Image: Band of Builders) Toby's dad Shaun had been completing the renovation while working at his day job as an electrical engineer. The father-of-six, who also had two grandchildren, tragically died by suicide on Christmas Eve 2024, which meant the work was unfinished. As a result, carers have only been able visit during the day and Toby's mum has had to carry him to bed and care for him alone during the night. A family friend put Sarah in contact with Band of Builders in February, who jumped on board to help the family. Completing Toby's wet room, his bedroom and updating the house will have a massive positive impact on family life, Sarah explained. Tony Everett, volunteer, and Sarah Fletcher (Image: Band of Builders) Tony Everett is one of the 150 volunteers that has signed up to get stuck into the project. He is a bricklayer and has been given the job of looking after the health and wellbeing of the volunteers. He said it's one of several projects that he has been involved with, and he loves giving back to the community. The work is set to start on July 5 and is expected to take 12 days to complete. Band of Builders began in 2016 and provides practical, financial and wellbeing support to those in need. It helps those who work in the construction industry and their families cope with life-changing circumstances. Visit for more information, to volunteer or to donate.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
Carer's allowance: woman who won case against DWP calls for end to ‘sickening harassment'
The mother of a teenager with cerebral palsy has demanded an end to the 'sickening harassment' of unpaid carers after a significant legal victory against the government. Nicola Green, 42, was pursued by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for more than a year after she was accused of fraudulently claiming nearly £3,000 in carer's allowance. When Green insisted she was innocent, the DWP wrote to her employer without her knowledge to try to recoup the sum from her pay. The part-time college worker, whose 17-year-old son has a number of health conditions, appealed against the fine before a tribunal judge, who quashed it in barely 30 minutes last month. Speaking after her legal victory, Green said she had been treated 'like a criminal' by the DWP over the £2,823.75 sum. 'I can't believe what they're putting people through,' she said. '[I'm] just a law-abiding person, who has never broken the law in my life. I've always tried to do things by the book … It feels like harassment.' The DWP wrote to Green on 27 May to say it was considering appealing against the tribunal ruling and that it would not cancel the debt until then. However, the department wrote to her again on Monday, days after being contacted the Guardian, to say it had cancelled the overpayment and that she would be offered advice about claiming compensation. A DWP spokesperson said: 'Ms Green's overpayment has been cancelled. We are committed to supporting carers across the UK. Tribunals offer customers an opportunity to provide any additional information which may be relevant to their case, and we regularly gather feedback and learn from them.' Green's case is the latest in the Guardian's award-winning investigation into the DWP's pursuit of unpaid carers despite official errors that have plunged tens of thousands of vulnerable people into hardship. The latest figures show that the government is clawing back at least £357m in carer's allowance paid out in error over the last six years, leaving hundreds of people with criminal records and some with debts of more than £20,000. The DWP has faced widespread criticism over its 'cruel and nonsensical' punishment of family carers who unwittingly earned slightly more than the weekly limit to qualify for carer's allowance, which rose to £196 a week in April. The department is alerted whenever a carer oversteps the weekly limit but until recently only checked half of these alerts – and as few as 12% for a long time – meaning tens of thousands of people were unknowingly building up debt for years. The controversial 'cliff-edge' rule means that a carer who earns £1 more than the weekly threshold must repay the whole of that week's carer's allowance, currently £83.30 a week. That means someone who earns £1 a week over the limit for a year must repay not £52 but £4,331.60. A Guardian analysis has found a sharp increase in the number of cases being quashed by judges in recent years as concern over the DWP's actions have grown. In the year to April 2025, tribunal judges struck out 42% of carer's allowance fines, compared with 29% in 2019 and 15% in 2014. In total, the DWP has lost 898 cases at tribunal in the last six years. Green, who works less than 14 hours a week at Bolton college, said she was reduced to tears by the DWP's pursuit. She juggles her term time-only job with caring for her teenage son, whom she did not wish to be named publicly. He has cerebral palsy, is deaf and has short bowel syndrome owing to complications arising from being born extremely premature, meaning he was hospitalised for six months from birth. 'They don't care about you. They don't care about your personal situation. They don't care what you've been through and they don't care how much you're saving the system,' she said. 'It's so unjust and it's the injustice that's driven me to challenge it. It's sickening actually. The tone of the letters – they're insinuating I'm a criminal. And going through the process you do feel like you've defrauded the system, however innocent it has been.' The DWP claimed Green had breached the earnings rules on seven occasions between December 2018 and April 2024. Five of these related to a one-off Christmas holiday bonus from her employer. One was due to unexpectedly receiving sick pay. The final overpayment related to a pay increase awarded to all Bolton college employees. However, tribunal judge Dianne Oliver ruled last month that Green had not in fact breached the rules because her average weekly pay was below the earnings limit. The DWP did not attend the 30-minute hearing in Bolton. The judgment follows a similar legal victory by another unpaid carer, Andrea Tucker, who defeated the government in February. The rulings are significant because the DWP routinely pursues carers on the basis of individual weekly earnings, rather than averaging them over a year. If the government took the latter approach, far fewer carers would end up with huge debts.
Daily Mail
09-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Florida nurse caught on camera cruelly torturing defenseless quadriplegic girl
A Florida nurse has been arrested after home surveillance footage captured her subjecting a quadriplegic woman to repeated abuse in her own home. Nia Ayers, 24, a licensed practical nurse from St. Cloud, now faces charges of aggravated assault of a disabled teenager after the video evidence revealed shocking acts of cruelty against an 18-year-old woman diagnosed with cerebral palsy. The victim, who is non-verbal and dependent on a ventilator, allegedly had her mouth taped shut, was violently shaken and subjected to ongoing physical torment by Ayers - who had been entrusted with her daily care. The abuse came to light on May 3, when the victim's mother noticed unexplained red cuts and scrapes on her daughter's face, leading her to review surveillance footage from inside the home. What she discovered was horrifying, Ayers could be seen repeatedly taping the victim's mouth shut and ripping the tape off, shaking her head and body, pinching her and aggressively shaking her breathing machine - causing the teen's nose to bleed. The heinous 'acts of torture' led to Ayers' arrest on Wednesday. According to the arrest warrant, the home surveillance film also shows Ayers holding a washcloth over the victim's mouth for 10 seconds and then again for another seven seconds as the paralyzed woman appears to try moving her head away while being suffocated. Ayers (pictured) in St. Cloud Police custody after she was arrested on Wednesday, May 7 The victim's mother told police that Ayers had been working in her home for more than a year, adding that she now fears there may have been additional abuse that went unnoticed. Police say they are still examining the full extent of the surveillance footage collected from the home. St. Cloud Police Chief Douglas Goerke condemned the incident as 'tragic and sickening,' stressing the extreme vulnerability of disabled individuals under professional care. 'It's just absolutely shocking; it's unimaginable that somebody could do something like this,' Goerke told Fox35Orlando. 'If we do find something else, there will be additional charges coming. We will drop charge after charge after charge on this person to ensure either she never sees the light of day, or she doesn't ever do this again.' Ayers is currently being held at the Osceola County Jail without bond. The home care nurse had been employed by two separate healthcare agencies and, according to state records, has no prior disciplinary record with the Florida Department of Health. She has been licensed as a practical nurse since 2021.
CBS News
06-05-2025
- General
- CBS News
Special Needs Network provides support to families in Los Angeles County affected by wildfires
Felicia Ford's daughter loves to drink tea, which is why the tea set they pulled from the ashes of what used to be their Altadena home is especially meaningful. "She kept saying, 'I want to go home. I want to go do something. I want to do whatever.'" Ford said. "And I kept telling her that our house burned down in a fire." Ford is a single mother who had just achieved her dream of homeownership six months before the Eaton Fire erupted in January. It took everything from them but their spirit. "I can do this because my daughter didn't breathe for 11 minutes at birth, so she has cerebral palsy," she said. "I said, 'I can do a fire.'" Not only is she the devoted mother of three biological children, but she's also opened her home to foster two other children, one of whom requires additional care like her daughter. "This experience has been very unique for us, dealing with the tragedy of losing our home. Well, especially for foster kids, you can imagine they didn't have the most stable upbringing, all the time anyway," she said. "Then to find a sense of stability and to find a home and then now have something like this happen." When asked what the biggest challenge is for her, as the parent of special needs kids, Ford said that it was constantly remaining positive in the face of such an unsure moment. "It was hard, cause I had to keep telling them it was going to be okay. Even though I didn't know if it was going to be okay or not." Krystal Williams works with the Special Needs Network Los Angeles. She says that the challenge presented by the fires was made even greater because children with special needs benefit from routine and structure, something that was ripped from their lives by the tragedy. "These families no long have their home, but the child has lost their routine, their consistency," she said. "That impacts their development, that impacts their therapies and their day-to-day, because that's what they thrive on, that consistency." Ford says she was heartened to see her special needs community step up in the face of adversity. "We help each other, and that's who came to my aid," she recalled. "It was not big companies and all this stuff. It was nonprofits, churches, special needs parents, Special Needs Network." She's not alone in facing the same devastating situation, and the Special Needs Network, a grassroots nonprofit that serves Black and Brown communities dealing with developmental disabilities, once again stepped up to provide much-needed support as far as they could. "We have started an initiative called 'Adopt the Family,'" said Williams. "Currently, we have 50 families that we are working with and we are helping the families through the process. We are going to be with them from the start until the end. Until they are in their home and comfortable." She says that a key part of their initiative is focusing on the mental health of those they're helping. "We have a program called 'Blues,' where we are working with youth who are working through depression and other types of mental health issues," Williams said. As for Ford, she says that she sets the pace for how her children are dealing with the tragedy. "I think if they don't see me fall down on the ground and cry and kick and scream, then they didn't do that," she said. While their time at the Altadena home, nestled in a historically Black neighborhood, may have been shorter than intended, Ford knows that the memories will live on with its legacy, which is not lost on her. Decades ago, she says that Rodney King called the same house home. "What he stood for represented something to all of us," she said. "It wasn't just a Black thing. It was that it was Rodney King and we witnessed something and people were held accountable and for me, that was refreshing because I'm an advocate by nature." She says that she draws some parallels between what happened to King and her own story. "Maybe in light of it being just a challenge, or an obstacle, or something unwarranted," she said. "We didn't ask for this, no one asked for it." Even through the hardship, she's still finding the silver lining. "I won't be crying about this in two, three, four years. It's just another experience and it just, it creates this mosaic of what life is and was and will be and that's it."
