Patterns of take-up of the Family Fund, the characteristics of eligible non-claimants and the reasons for not claiming.

This paper examines application to the Family Fund by families with severely handicapped children and attempts to find out whether eligible families have basic knowledge of the fund, what motivates them to apply and why some eligible families do not apply. Five local registers are used to investigate levels of take-up and a Kent survey of families with severely subnormal children is used to examine the characteristics of non-claimants. The Kent survey is also used to investigate whether extra publicity promotes application and to identify reasons for non-take-up.