Once again we'll be joining thousands of other walkers taking on the 10km London Legal Walk on Tuesday 17th June to help those in need gain access to life-changing free legal advice.

Let us know if you'd like to join our team by emailing manager@centre70.org.uk.

Or sponsor our team here

We regularly support people apply for Personal Independent Payment (PIP) or appeal negative decisions to their applications.

Here we share a couple of examples where this work has made a huge difference both financially and emotoinally.

Our client was a single woman in her 40’s suffering from severe mental health problems. She lost her job due to ill health and was signed off sick by her GP.

However, her assessment for Universal Credit concluded that she was fit for work. She was too overwhelmed with this decision to seek advice but luckily her social prescriber referred her to Centre 70 for assistance. We helped the client make an appeal but also assessed her entitlement to PIP. We advised her to claim it and provided the assistance she needed to complete the application.

During conversations with the client it also transpired that she would benefit from counselling, so we referred her for counselling at Centre 70 too.

In the end, the client was awarded PIP with the enhanced rate of the Daily Living component. She also won her appeal regarding limited capability for work and, not only was she treated as unable to work but she was also found to be unable to participate in any work-related activities. This resulted in our client getting extra money included in her Universal Credit which helped her financially and improved her wellbeing. 

In another case, we supported a 50 year old single woman who was living in a Housing Association flat and suffering from a number of mental health and physical conditions.  She had received a negative decision for her PIP application and was looking for support to appeal. We helped gather all the medical evidence and went through the descriptors for the PIP activities and prepared the submission for the appeal. 

The appeal was successful, and the client was awarded the Daily Living component of Personal Independence Payment at the enhanced rate of £101.75 a week, backdated from August 2023 through to August 2027. In addition she was also awarded the Mobility component at the enhanced rate of £71 a week for the same period.

This resulted in a back payment of £13,209 and future payments of £737.20 every 4 weeks, making a huge difference to her day to day life.

Stella started as a service user at Centre 70 and as a result we saw a change in her spirit and self.  We approached her to become a facilitator for our Bereavement group and now one year on she is thriving at the group, supporting attendees each week with her understanding and confident manor. 

She is also a Befriender for the Wellbeing service and has been doing so for nearly one year supporting her befriendee through loneliness by being someone she can talk to each week. 

She is also a volunteer for Centre 70's Inspire project attending our peer support group each week and doing outreach and attending events to spread the word about the service. 

Stella has become a key component of Centre 70 and personifies the valuable nature of our services which impacts and changes peoples lives for the better.

Congratulations to Centre 70 trustee Laura Cassidy who ran a personal best in the Great Manchester Run half marathon this May and raised an incredible £1,920 for Centre 70.