Children's claims solicitors

Securing funding for early rehabilitation

Where our client’s injury was caused by an insured driver, school or public body, our serious injury lawyers can often secure early access to rehabilitation, funded by the defendant’s insurer via The Rehabilitation Code.

Early rehabilitation has been proven to increase the injured child’s recovery. Even small improvements from early rehabilitation can make a big difference to their independence, mobility and ability to use assistive technology to communicate, access education and leisure activities. Later on, this gives the young person a better chance of being able to work or live independently with support.

Receiving interim payments (while the claim continues)

Where liability is admitted we secure substantial interim payments (while the claim continues). We use interim payments to ease financial hardship and meet our client’s immediate needs. This allows us to support our client families as they begin rebuilding their lives. Interim payments may help the family buy, rent or adapt their home to provide more suitable accommodation, and pay for care, specialist equipment, therapies, and educational support.

Final compensation settlement – preparing for the future

We work closely with our client families and our experts to ensure that our client’s future needs arising from their disability will be met. In order to do this properly, final settlement may need to be delayed until the child has grown and developed enough for their future condition and needs to be assessed. During the waiting period, interim payments are often used to settle the child and family into their new home, and to set up new arrangements, such as help from professional carers. Young adults may try out a period of supported independent living, so that we can ensure that the claim makes provision for any challenges that lie ahead.

We take great care in helping our young, severely injured clients prepare for their future. We work with experts to understand their needs arising from their disability, now and throughout their lives. Our experienced deputyship team provide our clients and their families with ongoing support and longer term planning after the claim has settled.

We advise parents or guardians of an injured child to contact us as soon as possible after the events which caused the injury.

This helps us ensure that their child has the best chance of recovering full compensation, and that essential evidence is preserved to help them succeed with their claim. Depending on the type of injury, it may give the child earlier access to rehabilitation.

However, we are often instructed by teenagers/young adults (or their parents) who decide to make a claim for birth or childhood injury caused by medical negligence or accidents earlier in their childhood. Their parents may not have felt able to pursue a claim at the time of the injury. As the teenager faces adulthood they decide to seek help in making their own claim. In many cases, families find that as the child grows and develops or is about to transition to a new stage of life, they need help with meeting their increasing needs.

We understand the stress, worry, emotional heartbreak and daily struggle faced by parents of a severely injured child. We know how difficult life becomes for families dealing with the financial impact of a child’s disability and the courage it takes to reach out for help.

Our client families come to us at all stages of their child’s development. Some contact us immediately after the injury, seeking answers. Others come to us when the child is older, often after years of struggle, when the child’s needs increase or they find themselves unable to cope.

Compensation helps provide long term financial security to meet their child’s lifelong needs. Our clients benefit from early, large interim payments to pay for therapies, specialist equipment, rehabilitation, suitable accommodation, special education and care.

We act in the child’s best interests whilst supporting the parents through the difficult times that follow a child’s injury. As they come to terms with the child’s injury and adapt to life with a disability, our client families can count on our professional expertise and guidance every step of the way.

Meeting the child’s needs in sensitive cases

It can be very difficult to come to terms with a child’s injury which happens in our care or that of another family member or friend. We approach these cases with compassion, and focus on obtaining the child’s entitlement to compensation, working with parents to meet the injured child’s needs.

Our experienced and professional lawyers have helped clients where:

• the child was injured in a road traffic accident whilst a passenger in the (grand)parent’s car:
• the child was injured whilst being carried on the back of a family member’s bike;
• the child was injured in a cycling accident but was not wearing a helmet;
• the child was brain-injured from being shaken whilst in someone else’s care;  
• the teenager was injured whilst car-surfing or risk-taking in or on a friend’s vehicle.

Protecting our vulnerable clients’ privacy

We know that the parents of children or young adults who receive substantial compensation for serious injury worry about them being vulnerable to the influence of others. The perception of sudden wealth can be misunderstood by friends, neighbours and even extended family who neither understand nor are entitled to know that the child has received compensation to meet their extensive lifelong needs.

We protect our vulnerable clients’ privacy by obtaining anonymity orders from the court. If you are concerned about your child’s vulnerability or privacy after settlement of their claim, let us know. We are here and happy to help you.

Compensation claims can help support disabled children with key transitions or new life stages:

• Moving from acute hospital care to rehabilitation;
• Starting education for the young child;
• Moving schools;
• Increased need for independence and educational support as teenagers;
• Moving from school to further education;
• Moving from parents’ home to independent or supported living;
• When parents can no longer manage the child’s needs – physically or financially;
• Moving into the workplace;
• Seeking community care.

The court requires compensation for a vulnerable young adult if over 18, to be protected by a Court of Protection appointed deputy. Boyes Turner’s medical negligence and injury lawyers work closely with our Court of Protection team, so that deputyship is set up as soon as an interim payment or compensation payment is agreed. Our Court of Protection deputy can then ensure that funds are available quickly to meet the child’s needs. In the case of an interim payment, this allows us to start helping the family pay for adapted housing, essential specialist equipment, therapies and care, whilst the case is ongoing.

Where a child’s injury has not affected their mental capacity, they are entitled to receive their money when they reach adulthood. In practice, many clients prefer to safeguard their substantial compensation payment, to ensure that money remains available when they need it to meet their needs. Provision can be made to protect their compensation by paying it into a personal injury trust.

Further long-term security and peace of mind is provided in the way we structure the payment of large settlements for severely injured children with predicted long lifespans.

Where a child will remain dependent on others’ care, their lump sum compensation may be paid alongside a PPO, providing the child with guaranteed, index-linked, tax-free, lifelong annual payments to cover the cost of their care.

Every child has the right to an education which meets their needs. Many parents are unaware that they have a say in the choice of school. Sadly, whilst the law gives rights to children with special educational needs, in practice local authorities may be unwilling to provide adequate support and funding. This is where we can help.

Our SEN specialists have helped hundreds of families secure the right school placement for their child or additional special educational support to meet their individual needs.

Our special educational needs (SEN) lawyers will provide you with as much support as is needed. Some parents find that with a little expert guidance they can handle the process themselves. Others feel more comfortable having a lawyer manage it for them. Whichever way you choose to work with us, our aim is to help you secure the educational provision that is right for your child.

Many of our clients have already recovered compensation or are in the process of making a claim following the accident or medical negligence which caused their child’s disability.

Some are referred by lawyers who have helped them in other areas but lack the expertise to help them with their educational needs. Others come to us directly because they know that when it comes to making important decisions with regard to their child’s education, they could do with some help.

We would advise any parent who is worried about whether their child’s special educational needs are being met to contact us early, as time limits apply in some cases. Our clients often describe the immediate sense of relief they feel after talking to us. Our results speak for themselves.

We act as a professional deputy for many of our child, teenage and young adult clients. We get to know our clients and their families well, and provide friendly, practical support. It’s good to know that professional does not have to mean impersonal.

Our specialist Court of Protection team act as deputies for many clients who have been brain-injured at birth or in childhood through accident or illness. Others owe their condition to genetic causes. We also provide trusteeship for those with physical disability.

If your child needs help with their financial affairs, our specialists will:

• guide you through the application process and administration of deputyship;
• handle the paperwork;
• liaise with the Court of Protection, social services and other agencies to satisfy reporting requirements and ensure that the child receives the provision they need;
• help your child make the most of their money by maximising their benefits and accessing grants;
• relieve parents of the burden of paperwork, administration and management involved in employing carers, buying equipment, transport and adapting the family home;
• make an application for a statutory will, where needed.

Our reputation as experts helping disabled children and their families means that clients often come to us from other solicitors for deputyship or trusteeship for help with managing their interim payments and final compensation.

We are regularly asked to take over deputyships with the approval of the Court of Protection, where the client’s lawyers recognise that they do not have the necessary skills or expertise.

• £5 million lump sum plus lifelong, annual payments rising to £232,750pa, and a fully funded placement at Treloar’s (special educational needs school) for a boy whose cerebral palsy was caused by hypoxic and traumatic brain injuries at birth.
•  $23 million settlement in an international cerebral palsy kernicterus brain injury claim arising from negligent treatment of neonatal jaundice.
• £1.4million compensation for a young adult client with Erb’s palsy caused by excessive traction during her birth by forceps delivery 20 years earlier.
•  £480,000 compensation for a boy whose sight loss was made worse by an optician’s six month delay in diagnosis of a brain tumour.
• £550,000 lump sum and over £26,000 of rehab for a teenager who suffered a head injury when he fell from the boot of a moving car.
•  £3 million compensation plus £225,000 funded rehab for a student who suffered a brain injury when hit by speeding driver on pedestrian crossing.
• £2 million for teenager with head injury after running into the road and being hit by a taxi.