Universal Credit and benefits - help for care leavers

We'll help you claim Universal Credit and benefits, and will work with you and the job centre to sort any issues you have with these.

If you have problems with Universal Credit and benefits, debt or managing your money, speak to your Young Person's Advisor (YPA) or Your social worker - they will contact us, to see how we can help.

Did you know?

As a care leaver you can ask for:

your Universal Credit to be paid weekly
your landlord to be paid directly (the housing element of your Universal Credit)

We will contact the job centre for you, and let them know that you are able to receive your Universal Credit this way.

Help to claim Universal Credit and benefits

Before your 18th birthday, we'll contact you to help you apply for Universal Credit, and any other benefits you may be entitled to (for example Personal Independence Payment (PIP)).

Help with any Universal Credit and benefit issues

If you have any problems, we'll speak to the job centre for you, to sort these. This could include:

challenging any sanctions (cuts) on your payments, because you've missed an appointment or other commitment.
challenging any benefit decisions that you don't agree with, and appealing if our challenge is not successful.
making sure that any debt payments you have (through your benefits) are as low as they can be.

Our Benefits advice or help with a benefits appeal teams can also help with questions and problems on a wide range of social security benefit and tax credit issues.