A simple daily log to record the care and supervision your child needs — the kind of everyday detail a DLA claim asks you to describe. Fill it in on your phone, tablet or computer, or print it blank to write by hand. It saves automatically on your device.
| Date | When | Help with | What you did | Mins | Type | More than peer? |
|---|
Disability Living Allowance for children is decided on how much extra care, attention and supervision your child needs compared with a child of the same age who doesn't have a disability or health condition. The claim form and any review ask you to describe a typical day — and it's easy to under-describe it, because when you do this care every day it just feels normal. A diary written at the time is far more convincing than trying to remember months later.
A few things that make a care diary genuinely useful:
The care component has three levels, based on how much help your child needs through the day and night. In broad terms it considers:
Frequent help throughout the day with things like washing, dressing, eating, toileting, medication or communication — more than would be usual for their age.
Needing someone watching over them to prevent harm to themselves or others — for example a child who has no sense of danger, bolts, or becomes distressed and unsafe without warning.
Repeated attention during the night, or someone needing to be awake to keep them safe. This is where a sleep diary alongside this care diary strengthens a claim.
This tool doesn't decide anything or send anything anywhere — it just helps you gather the everyday detail in one place so you can describe it clearly on the form.
Here's what a single well-recorded day might look like, so you can see the level of detail that helps:
| When | Help with | What you did | Mins | More than peer? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning | Dressing | Laid clothes out in order, prompted every step, helped with buttons and shoes — can't do it alone. | 20 | Yes |
| Morning | Eating / drinking | Sat with him the whole meal, cut food up, reminded every few mouthfuls or he stops eating. | 30 | Yes |
| Morning | Behaviour / keeping safe | Constant supervision getting ready — tried to leave the house twice, no awareness of the road. | — | Yes |
Notice it names the task, describes what the parent actually did, gives a time, and marks whether it's more than another child that age would need. That's the pattern the tool above helps you build.
This diary covers daytime care. The full pack brings together everything a claim asks you to evidence — in one place, formatted and ready to use.
It isn't required, but it's one of the most useful things you can provide. A DLA claim is decided on how much extra care and supervision your child needs, and a diary written at the time shows that far more clearly than trying to summarise it from memory. It's especially helpful at review or if you appeal a decision.
A week or two of typical days is usually plenty. Aim to capture ordinary days as well as harder ones, so it reflects what care looks like most of the time rather than only the worst moments.
Care is hands-on help — washing, dressing, feeding, giving medication and so on. Supervision is needing someone watching over your child to keep them (or others) safe, even if you're not doing something with your hands at that moment. Both count towards a DLA claim, and supervision is the one parents most often forget to mention.
Yes. In Scotland, DLA for children has been replaced by Child Disability Payment, which looks at very similar care and mobility needs. When a young person turns 16 they usually move to Personal Independence Payment (or Adult Disability Payment in Scotland). The same kind of day-to-day record of needs is useful for all of them.
No — it's a free template to help you organise your own notes, not an official form, and Helpset isn't connected to the DWP or Social Security Scotland. Nothing you type is uploaded or sent anywhere. It's saved only in your own browser on your own device, and you can clear it any time with the "Clear all" button.
Helpset provides free templates to help you organise your own evidence. We're not affiliated with the DWP or Social Security Scotland, and this is general information, not formal benefits advice. For advice on your specific claim, contact Citizens Advice or a local welfare rights service.