My name is Zoë Williams and I am an
Advisor/Administrator for Age Concern Suffolk, based at the Advice
and Advocacy Service.
I work in an office at the rear of the Age Concern shop in
Ipswich Street, Stowmarket with my three colleagues. Tracy Matthew
and Pauline Masniuk are our administrators and our manager is Jayne
Day. Compared to Jayne, we are the ‘new girls on the block’, and
all bow to her superior knowledge! We affectionately call her ‘The
Boss’, but it is fair to say that we all enjoy working under her
watchful eye!
I sometimes feel that my working life mirrors my home life;
‘chaotic’ may be a fair description! Home consists of cats, dog,
parrot, daughter and much loved husband; work consists of our small
team of close and happy workers, but most importantly, our
clients.
We never know who will be calling us, or what their individual
problems may be, and whilst we have all been trained to carry out
our allocated work, as with life in general, each day delivers
another lesson. Ostensibly, we offer benefit advice to the whole of
the County; calculating whether or not our clients are receiving
all the money to which they may be entitled.
There are a host of benefits:
- Attendance Allowance
- Disability Living Allowance
- Council Tax and Housing Benefit
- Help with dental and opticians costs and hospital
travel
- Community Care Grants
The list goes on and can be confusing
Many people are unaware of the help that they could receive. We
arrange home visits to help people claim, or to signpost them to
the relevant authorities.
Being a Charity, we are completely independent, and as such we
are impartial. We can therefore negotiate with agencies such as the
Department of Work and Pensions, Local Councils and Social Care
Services without any conflict of interest. We assist with a variety
of problems and queries such as non-receipt of benefits, checking
benefit awards, Community Care Assessments, Residential Care
issues, and anything else that our clients may be concerned about.
We are also able to represent our clients at Appeal Tribunals.
We do everything we can to maximise the income of our clients,
never forgetting the people who we represent.
Our Area Advice Workers and volunteers should be gold plated.
They are Jill Wells, Brenda Thompson, Dave Pruitt, Dave Peryer,
Norman Ruffles, Ron Cobb 1 and Ron Cobb 2, Val Kemp and Helena
Spicer, who spend many hours helping clients fill in those
wonderful official forms! Without their expertise, many people may
have missed out on money to which they are entitled. We also have a
new volunteer starting; Malcolm Hathaway, and we look forward to
working with him.
We have many successes; we
recently increased one lady’s weekly income by £162.65, and
negotiated back payments of Pension Credit and Council Tax benefit
for her of £10,746.72. However, even the smallest increase in
weekly income can make an enormous difference to someone’s quality
of life.
Me personally? I try to be eternally happy and hope this comes
across to our clients! Jayne channels my enthusiasm in the right
direction, and along with Tracy and Pauline is sympathetic to my
sense of humour.
We are a good team – we care about each other, we care about our
work, but above all this we care about our clients. We are here for
them, to do whatever we can, whenever we can, so at the end of our
working day, we can go home to our individual chaos, knowing that
today we helped someone special, and that could be you.
For independent, confidential benefits advice phone Age
Concern Suffolk Advice Service on 01449
674222