ADVICE RATING |
 4.86 (Highly recommend) from 27 votes (1310 Visits) |
|
|
My Child is 15 turning 16...What to do with Centrelink... |
 |
by cookclan  (March 2007) (rank 7th) |
|
Well I thought I would write a bit of advice so that maybe someone will not go through the dramas we had to when it came to us doing this...Your eldest child is turning 16 soon and you recieve a centerlink benifit for them...Here in Australia when a child turns 16
they come off you family allowance and go onto a youth allowance of their own...So what can you do to prepare for this so that hopefully there will be no gap in the time they come off and the time they get their new payment...
Well here is what happened to us..I rang them just before Aidan turned 16 and got the papers out and looked at what I needed to do to claim this payment for him...I then called them 2 days after his birthday to tell them I needed to get a few more thing in place for his paper work to be ready...This made our experience really hard and a big pain...
For an easy experience with this transition from 15 to 16 this is what you should do...Obviously this advice is only useful to Australian residents...But maybe other people from other countries could do what they have learnt with their experiences in their own countries...
Firstly about two months before you 15 year old turns 16 ring centrelink and tell them of the pending birthday and ask for all the relevent forms you need for youth allowance...
Next if you do not have one already apply for an original full birth certificate...It does not matter if you have already showed centrelink this you need to do it again...
Collect all your childrens id like their school id and report cards are even worth points these days too...Make sure you have enough points for what they want...
When you have a birth certificate if you don't already then get the necessary forms to apply for a tax file number if your child does not already have one of these...
Fill in your forms and get all the necessary forms you need together including you tax return from the previous year and lodge these forms about a month before your child birthday...
That way they will be processed and it will be just waiting to change over...Centrelink can be hard to work with at the best of times but having a child removed from your family allowance to only have no payment for them for them for 4 to 6 weeks can stretched the budget because even though they are getting no payment they still need to eat and you need to buy things for them....
Unfortunately we did not get all this done in the right time frame and I do know just how hard that time can be...So hopefully this advcie will help someone who just might not know what to do to be prepared for the whole transition from 15 to 16....
Goodluck
Have a great day
Cheers
Angie
Lexi xxx
