https://youtu.be/9qkk4QY4bes
What we have we done what do we need to?
Due to half term I guess you won’t be studying a lot at the moment but not to worry, you don’t have to and no rush and it's half term. I wouldn't except you to study all the time but when you do, I have written down in the teaching programme what is a head us next so if you do have chance please prepare yourself, if not not to worry to we can all help each other as a group when the time comes. I understand you could be on
placement as well. I am just letting know about the sessions we and have done
and the sessions I plain to come. I will put this report in an email to Lynne
which she should get after half term, I guess soon as she’s aware of it she
will make you aware too.
Like I said I know you guys are Student Learning Disability nurses but the idea of you learning these topics, is the awareness of how everyday issues can have affect on the health of people with disabilities and health problems.
As for the that report about the Jobcentre and that, there's no stress, pres sager or time limit when you study it. It's just some update information of what people with disabilities and health problems are facing with benefits, support and employment theses days. I can't promise but maybe a session could be planned where we could do some work on that a piece of work. Ever so often we will do a bit of revision on each topic.
Like I said I know you guys are Student Learning Disability nurses but the idea of you learning these topics, is the awareness of how everyday issues can have affect on the health of people with disabilities and health problems.
As for the that report about the Jobcentre and that, there's no stress, pres sager or time limit when you study it. It's just some update information of what people with disabilities and health problems are facing with benefits, support and employment theses days. I can't promise but maybe a session could be planned where we could do some work on that a piece of work. Ever so often we will do a bit of revision on each topic.
Session 1 I introduced myself and a short bit of
information of what I will be teaching, which was. What are learning
disabilities and health problems? What kind of disabilities and health problems
are there? Communication and Accessible information.
Second
session. We did your first module was on the 23rd
September 2015. You introduced yourselves to me, Lynne, each other and we introduced ourselves . I spoke
to you about PCP Person Centered planning how that works, the balance between support and independence. You told me different forms of communication, which I
listed down on the board. I can’t say when but I hope to do a session
where we go through what disabilities and health problems there are and how
different people communicate with these disabilities and health problems. Very well done for what
you have all done so far.
3rd session. was the Benefit cuts 21st
October 2015, just a little bit of reference advice. I can understand this
reference could be very hard to get hold of but if you can get hold of it,
there’s a lot of useful information, I don't except to look at it all the time but a bit of a time and learn as much as what you can before it goes out of date if you do get access to it. It’s the Disability Rights Handbook, I never thought about it
until my sister bought me a copy for my birthday. I can understand as far as
buying is concerned it may be too pricey and the same to download it as well.
You may be able to get a copy from the library, which may better because it’s
only dated from the April 2015 to April 2016. It’s according whether or not the
libraries have a copy. You may able to ask even if the University library if there's a copy there. I don’t want to keep on teaching
the benefit cuts every session I do at the University but I may be able to ask Lynne if
I could photocopy a page ever so often before the book goes out of date then we
can do a bit of work on it or get a copy each for you. WWW.disabilityrightsuk.org
Well done for all of who took part in the Benefit’s cut session, everyone did very well indeed thank you.
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13 THOUGHTS ON “MORE JOBCENTRE RECORDINGS: WE CAN’T HELP
DISABLED CLAIMANTS AT THIS JOBCENTRE. YOU’LL HAVE TO GO ELSEWHERE”
SHARE THIS:
13 THOUGHTS ON “MORE JOBCENTRE RECORDINGS: WE CAN’T HELP
DISABLED CLAIMANTS AT THIS JOBCENTRE. YOU’LL HAVE TO GO ELSEWHERE”
Well done for all of who took part in the Benefit’s cut session, everyone did very well indeed thank you.
Session 4 is to come. Different types of disabilities and health problems.
· What are learning disabilities and health problems?
· What kind of disabilities and health problems are there?
· How do disabilities and health problems start?
· What can cause disabilities and health problems?
· WWW.mencap.org.uk for learning disabilities.
· Tap your search engine in Mind, Rethink or and Healthy Mind for health problems.
- I forgot to add to the first and second session is to find out how much difference there is if any between learning disabilities and learning difficulties.
- If there's time in the next session we may do some work on PCP Person Centered Planning if not we can plan it for another session.
Session 5. (Accessible information easy read.)
More sessions are to be planned from there. I will also ask Lynne to forward this report in an email to Steven and Mick to share with the 3rd year and for Lynne to share it with the 2nd year too.
Here is an aware of the
lack of support disabled people are now getting with employment and that.
More jobcentre recordings: We can’t help
disabled claimants at this jobcentre. You’ll have to go elsewhere
Posted on October 26, 2015
Here’s a
very recent example of the extraordinary lack of support that disabled JSA
claimants can find at jobcentres when they’re looking work.
In the
recording below, an adviser at a north London jobcentre actually tells
me that advisers at this jobcentre can’t give extra job search help or
support to the disabled claimant who I’m with. The adviser doesn’t try to
pretend otherwise. He says that the jobcentre can’t help this disabled man,
because there are no Disability Employment Advisers at this jobcentre now (DEAs
are advisers who are meant to have additional skills and time for disabled
benefit claimants). Nobody else at the jobcentre can give the man extra
support. The adviser said that the man’s only choice was to move jobcentres to
one that does still have specialist disability advisers. That was the end of
that. So much, I thought, for the DWP’s claims to me by recent email that
disabled benefit claimants can expect “tailored support specific to their
individual needs,” at jobcentres. These DWP claims of “tailored support” for
disabled JSA claimants are rot as far as I’m concerned – as great a lie as the DWP’s use of
fake benefit claimants and quotes in leaflets. It seems to me that
when the DWP talks about “tailored support” for disabled claimants at
jobcentres, the DWP pretends to offer a service that it does not.
The
disabled JSA claimant in this case is a 52-year-old man who has learning and
literacy difficulties. He worked for years as a kitchen and general assistant,
but hasn’t found work since he was made redundant from his last job about six
years ago. I’ve attended his JSA sign on sessions with him for over a year (we
both wonder why we still bother a lot of the time). This man struggles with
writing and spelling in particular. We’ve spent much time filling in
job applications together. Here’s an example of an application
form he filled in where he copied words that I wrote in my notebook into the
form. You can see the trouble that he has writing coherent sentences even when
he copies text:
This man
often says that he is keen for a job. He says that he attends job fairs and
when we met last week, we arranged to meet again to fill in application forms
for porter and general assistant roles (he can’t use a computer, so needs other
people to make online applications). He needs help to fill in the forms. He says that he’s lost his chance
at jobs in the past, because he couldn’t complete forms to an
acceptable standard: “I went to a nursing home in Enfield which I really should
have got in there, because it was just a simple kitchen assistant job. No – the
reason they give me was Oh, there were some mistakes in the application form
and the spelling.”
That’s why
at this man’s JSA sign on meeting last week, I asked the jobcentre adviser if
anyone at the jobcentre could help this guy fill in his forms. The adviser said
No, nobody could. The reason given? – this jobcentre no longer had a Disability
Employment Adviser to provide that sort of support, as I say. The DEA left a
few months ago, wasn’t replaced and nobody had taken on the extra duties. (The
now-departed DEA at this jobcentre told me earlier
this year that nobody else at the jobcentre would have time to
help disabled claimants when she left). The jobcentre’s advice for this man was
that he should move jobcentres, to Tottenham, if he wanted any help. There were
still two DEAs working at the Tottenham jobcentre. And… that was it. I was
sitting there thinking – great. Iain Duncan Smith wants to force
more sick or disabled people onto job-seekers’ allowance and
this is his idea of tailored job search support – a sad shrug from a jobcentre
adviser and an instruction to go elsewhere:
Recording:
Transcript:
Me – “is there any facility like now
that [DEA name removed] is gone for someone to help with an application? I mean
I’m quite happy to help, but I just wondered if the jobcentre offered that kind
of service… [to help with] the writing… this kind of stuff…
C – we don’t have ….that’s what I was
explaining to him [the claimant], I don’t know if he was here with you, that
before leaving [DEA name removed] knew that there would be no one to take over.
She told me that she was advising him to go back to the Tottenham jobcentre,
because Tottenham they have two [DEAs]
M – Yeah, he just has trouble getting
there. So here they don’t, really, basically.”
A couple of things here.
The first thing is that moving
jobcentres can be very difficult for someone who needs some support and finds
change very hard to cope with. This man had already moved jobcentres from
Kilburn when he was rehoused earlier this year. He hasn’t coped well with the
move. He’s often angry and belligerent. Another move to another jobcentre would
not be easy. He resists the idea absolutely. God only knows if he’d have to
move again at some point, as well. The adviser we saw last week said that he
expected the number of DEAs to drop across jobcentres, too – “to save money,”
he said. Appointments at jobcentres already get cancelled because of a
lack of staff. I have turned up for a number of jobcentre or work programme
meetings over the past year, only to find that they’ve been cancelled
due to a staff shortage. I can’t imagine this situation or the
numbers improving.
The second point I’d make is that
Disability Employment Advisers aren’t always brilliantly helpful anyway. I’m
not convinced that “tailored support” for sick or disabled people is their
exact goal. I think that their focus is governments: to push everybody into
unpaid or very low-paid work. The DEAs I’ve met seem obsessed with pushing
disabled people into unpaid work, or with lining disabled people up for the
work programme and low-paid work choice jobs. Earlier this year, this man and I met several times with
the DEA who recently departed this jobcentre. She ignored this man’s concerns
about his diabetic illness ( you can hear a recording here ) and spent our meetings trying to sign this guy up for
voluntary work, or for work choice programmes with Seetec. She didn’t fill in
applications forms either, just by the way. She pushed reams of forms over the
desk and expected me to talk the guy
into agreeing to sign up for work choice, and, presumably, to fill
in the forms if he did agree. There was nothing tailored going on there.
You see my point. Our fortnightly
visits to the jobcentre are utterly hopeless. I’ve introduced a post-sign on
lunch at Wetherspoons into the outing just so that we have something to look
forward to and can chat like human beings. I’m guessing that this guy has been
parked by the jobcentre in some way: he’s been unemployed for a long time, he’s
getting older and he isn’t well (he has trouble with his diabetes and seems to
struggle to manage his sugar levels). He has become very defensive and
resistant as time has dragged on. I’d say that his various jobcentres have
stuck him on some sort of Too Hard to Fix list. It may also be that decent
advisers don’t want to torture him any more than they have to. It seems likely
these people know full well that his only real options outside the jobcentre
are unpaid work, or very low-paid, insecure, manual jobs. That being the case,
they sign him on and let him go. And so on we go with the charade: backwards
and forwards we travel to that jobcentre. We sit, see the jobcentre adviser and
get that week’s job search signed off. Occasionally, an adviser makes noises
about the work programme. We hear those noises and then we leave. I suppose
that sooner or later, someone will force him onto another work programme course
(he’s been on four).
I keep trying to work out what is
really going on here. This guy is older and unwell, and now he’s belligerent.
The jobcentre is just a place that guys in his situation are dumped these days.
I expect he’ll soon be joined by plenty more people in similar situations. I already talk with other people in
similar situations. As I say, Iain Duncan Smith plans to push more
disabled people off disability benefits and onto job seekers’ allowance as
people are expected to find work. His department claims that all will be well,
because jobcentres are geared up to provide the support that sick or disabled
people need to find decent work. That DWP email again: “Job seekers now have
access to dedicated work coaches, who are trained to provide tailored support
specific to their individual needs.” I’m saying I Think Not. This service isn’t
tailored. It’s threadbare. There’s a disabled woman I attend another London
jobcentre with: we’ve turned up twice to scheduled
meetings with a work coach this year only to be told at the door that the work coach couldn’t make
it.
It is high time that the DWP and work
programme providers gave us some transparency with this “system.”
Reporters should be given free access to work programme and work choice
placements, and jobcentres. Let’s see what this tailored support really looks
like all over. If Iain Duncan Smith is really going to shove more sick or disabled
people into jobcentres, they will need something better than this. I can’t
imagine that they’ll get it.
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This entry was posted in Public spending cuts, Welfare reform by Kate B. Bookmark the permalink.
13 THOUGHTS ON “MORE JOBCENTRE RECORDINGS: WE CAN’T HELP
DISABLED CLAIMANTS AT THIS JOBCENTRE. YOU’LL HAVE TO GO ELSEWHERE”
1.
Dino on October 26, 2015 at 15:46 said:
When I lived near Leeds I used to
shop in Castle ford and passed a job center on the way to ALDI, this wasn’t the
job center I had to sign on at the one I signed on at was 9.2 miles from my
home this one was just over 4 miles away, 4.4 to be exact, when I queried it
with them they said that Here is an aware of the
lack of support disabled people are now getting with employment and that.
More jobcentre recordings: We can’t help
disabled claimants at this jobcentre. You’ll have to go elsewhere
Posted on October 26, 2015
Here’s a
very recent example of the extraordinary lack of support that disabled JSA
claimants can find at jobcentres when they’re looking work.
In the
recording below, an adviser at a north London jobcentre actually tells
me that advisers at this jobcentre can’t give extra job search help or
support to the disabled claimant who I’m with. The adviser doesn’t try to
pretend otherwise. He says that the jobcentre can’t help this disabled man,
because there are no Disability Employment Advisers at this jobcentre now (DEAs
are advisers who are meant to have additional skills and time for disabled
benefit claimants). Nobody else at the jobcentre can give the man extra
support. The adviser said that the man’s only choice was to move jobcentres to
one that does still have specialist disability advisers. That was the end of
that. So much, I thought, for the DWP’s claims to me by recent email that
disabled benefit claimants can expect “tailored support specific to their
individual needs,” at jobcentres. These DWP claims of “tailored support” for
disabled JSA claimants are rot as far as I’m concerned – as great a lie as the DWP’s use of
fake benefit claimants and quotes in leaflets. It seems to me that
when the DWP talks about “tailored support” for disabled claimants at
jobcentres, the DWP pretends to offer a service that it does not.
The
disabled JSA claimant in this case is a 52-year-old man who has learning and
literacy difficulties. He worked for years as a kitchen and general assistant,
but hasn’t found work since he was made redundant from his last job about six
years ago. I’ve attended his JSA sign on sessions with him for over a year (we
both wonder why we still bother a lot of the time). This man struggles with
writing and spelling in particular. We’ve spent much time filling in
job applications together. Here’s an example of an application
form he filled in where he copied words that I wrote in my notebook into the
form. You can see the trouble that he has writing coherent sentences even when
he copies text:
This man
often says that he is keen for a job. He says that he attends job fairs and
when we met last week, we arranged to meet again to fill in application forms
for porter and general assistant roles (he can’t use a computer, so needs other
people to make online applications). He needs help to fill in the forms. He says that he’s lost his chance
at jobs in the past, because he couldn’t complete forms to an
acceptable standard: “I went to a nursing home in Enfield which I really should
have got in there, because it was just a simple kitchen assistant job. No – the
reason they give me was Oh, there were some mistakes in the application form
and the spelling.”
That’s why
at this man’s JSA sign on meeting last week, I asked the jobcentre adviser if
anyone at the jobcentre could help this guy fill in his forms. The adviser said
No, nobody could. The reason given? – this jobcentre no longer had a Disability
Employment Adviser to provide that sort of support, as I say. The DEA left a
few months ago, wasn’t replaced and nobody had taken on the extra duties. (The
now-departed DEA at this jobcentre told me earlier
this year that nobody else at the jobcentre would have time to
help disabled claimants when she left). The jobcentre’s advice for this man was
that he should move jobcentres, to Tottenham, if he wanted any help. There were
still two DEAs working at the Tottenham jobcentre. And… that was it. I was
sitting there thinking – great. Iain Duncan Smith wants to force
more sick or disabled people onto jobseekers’ allowance and
this is his idea of tailored job search support – a sad shrug from a jobcentre
adviser and an instruction to go elsewhere:
Recording:
Transcript:
Me – “is there any facility like now
that [DEA name removed] is gone for someone to help with an application? I mean
I’m quite happy to help, but I just wondered if the jobcentre offered that kind
of service… [to help with] the writing… this kind of stuff…
C – we don’t have ….that’s what I was
explaining to him [the claimant], I don’t know if he was here with you, that
before leaving [DEA name removed] knew that there would be no one to take over.
She told me that she was advising him to go back to the Tottenham jobcentre,
because Tottenham they have two [DEAs]
M – Yeah, he just has trouble getting
there. So here they don’t, really, basically.”
A couple of things here.
The first thing is that moving
jobcentres can be very difficult for someone who needs some support and finds
change very hard to cope with. This man had already moved jobcentres from
Kilburn when he was rehoused earlier this year. He hasn’t coped well with the
move. He’s often angry and belligerent. Another move to another jobcentre would
not be easy. He resists the idea absolutely. God only knows if he’d have to
move again at some point, as well. The adviser we saw last week said that he
expected the number of DEAs to drop across jobcentres, too – “to save money,”
he said. Appointments at jobcentres already get cancelled because of a
lack of staff. I have turned up for a number of jobcentre or work programme
meetings over the past year, only to find that they’ve been cancelled
due to a staff shortage. I can’t imagine this situation or the
numbers improving.
The second point I’d make is that
Disability Employment Advisers aren’t always brilliantly helpful anyway. I’m
not convinced that “tailored support” for sick or disabled people is their
exact goal. I think that their focus is governments: to push everybody into
unpaid or very low-paid work. The DEAs I’ve met seem obsessed with pushing
disabled people into unpaid work, or with lining disabled people up for the
work programme and low-paid work choice jobs. Earlier this year, this man and I met several times with
the DEA who recently departed this jobcentre. She ignored this man’s concerns
about his diabetic illness ( you can hear a recording here ) and spent our meetings trying to sign this guy up for
voluntary work, or for work choice programmes with Seetec. She didn’t fill in
applications forms either, just by the way. She pushed reams of forms over the
desk and expected me to talk the guy
into agreeing to sign up for work choice, and, presumably, to fill
in the forms if he did agree. There was nothing tailored going on there.
You see my point. Our fortnightly
visits to the jobcentre are utterly hopeless. I’ve introduced a post-sign on
lunch at Wetherspoons into the outing just so that we have something to look
forward to and can chat like human beings. I’m guessing that this guy has been
parked by the jobcentre in some way: he’s been unemployed for a long time, he’s
getting older and he isn’t well (he has trouble with his diabetes and seems to
struggle to manage his sugar levels). He has become very defensive and
resistant as time has dragged on. I’d say that his various jobcentres have
stuck him on some sort of Too Hard to Fix list. It may also be that decent
advisers don’t want to torture him any more than they have to. It seems likely
these people know full well that his only real options outside the jobcentre
are unpaid work, or very low-paid, insecure, manual jobs. That being the case,
they sign him on and let him go. And so on we go with the charade: backwards
and forwards we travel to that jobcentre. We sit, see the jobcentre adviser and
get that week’s job search signed off. Occasionally, an adviser makes noises
about the work programme. We hear those noises and then we leave. I suppose
that sooner or later, someone will force him onto another work programme course
(he’s been on four).
I keep trying to work out what is
really going on here. This guy is older and unwell, and now he’s belligerent.
The jobcentre is just a place that guys in his situation are dumped these days.
I expect he’ll soon be joined by plenty more people in similar situations. I already talk with other people in
similar situations. As I say, Iain Duncan Smith plans to push more
disabled people off disability benefits and onto job seekers’ allowance as
people are expected to find work. His department claims that all will be well,
because jobcentres are geared up to provide the support that sick or disabled
people need to find decent work. That DWP email again: “Job seekers now have
access to dedicated work coaches, who are trained to provide tailored support
specific to their individual needs.” I’m saying I Think Not. This service isn’t
tailored. It’s threadbare. There’s a disabled woman I attend another London
jobcentre with: we’ve turned up twice to scheduled
meetings with a work coach this year only to be told at the door that the work coach couldn’t make
it.
It is high time that the DWP and work
programme providers gave us some transparency with this “system.”
Reporters should be given free access to work programme and work choice
placements, and jobcentres. Let’s see what this tailored support really looks
like all over. If Iain Duncan Smith is really going to shove more sick or disabled
people into jobcentres, they will need something better than this. I can’t
imagine that they’ll get it.
SHARE THIS:
·
Share
This entry was posted in Public spending cuts, Welfare reform by Kate B. Bookmark the permalink.
13 THOUGHTS ON “MORE JOBCENTRE RECORDINGS: WE CAN’T HELP
DISABLED CLAIMANTS AT THIS JOBCENTRE. YOU’LL HAVE TO GO ELSEWHERE”
1.
Dino on October 26, 2015 at 15:46 said:
When I lived near Leeds I used to
shop in Castle ford and passed a job center on the way to ALDI, this wasn’t the
job center I had to sign on at the one I signed on at was 9.2 miles from my
home this one was just over 4 miles away, 4.4 to be exact, when I queried it
with them they said that JC+ was not in my area.
Re “tailored support specific to
[our] individual needs”: Disability Equality Trainer M T has advised that the
word ‘requirements’ is more powerful than ‘needs’. ‘Needs’ is a word too much
linked to ‘neediness’, whereas ‘requirements suggest rights, responsibilities
and authority.
And “tailored support” presupposes
proper assessment of what our disabilities really involve. Proper assessment in
itself would involve substantial up-front investment. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence
Scale tests I went through with Camden Learning Disability Services near my
60th birthday indicate that for some intellectual functioning categories, my
scores are ‘borderline’ on ‘learning disability’ range that is set at or below
IQ score of 70. The subsequent report from CLDS gives me great documentation
for ESA ‘Work Capability Assessment’ purposes, but no entitlement to even a
formal diagnosis from CLDS that would formally diagnose my impairment/disability
as dyspraxia.
Such a formal diagnosis, I am told,
would cost me hundreds of pounds. So in effect, all the
learning-and-co-learning hoops and hurdles I have gone through over the decades
since 1978 when a Manpower Services Commission-run ‘Employment Rehabilitation Center's ‘Occupational Psychologist’ [sic] told me that my career difficulties stemmed
from “a birth defect” have befitted me nothing in terms of employment credit.
Right wing ‘welfare reform’ is not
really about rewarding effort and ‘saving disabled people from worthlessness’,
but the privatization of the welfare state and screwing the economically vulnerable. Benefit sanctions and threat of sanctions are really a means of
unconscionable global corporations finding commercial profit in exploiting the
people they would previously have ‘parked’ as not worth the current time of day.
JC+ was not in my area.
Re “tailored support specific to
[our] individual needs”: Disability Equality Trainer M T has advised that the
word ‘requirements’ is more powerful than ‘needs’. ‘Needs’ is a word too much
linked to ‘neediness’, whereas ‘requirements suggest rights, responsibilities
and authority.
And “tailored support” presupposes
proper assessment of what our disabilities really involve. Proper assessment in
itself would involve substantial up-front investment. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence
Scale tests I went through with Camden Learning Disability Services near my
60th birthday indicate that for some intellectual functioning categories, my
scores are ‘borderline’ on ‘learning disability’ range that is set at or below
IQ score of 70. The subsequent report from CLDS gives me great documentation
for ESA ‘Work Capability Assessment’ purposes, but no entitlement to even a
formal diagnosis from CLDS that would formally diagnose my impairment/disability
as dyspraxia.
Such a formal diagnosis, I am told,
would cost me hundreds of pounds. So in effect, all the
learning-and-co-learning hoops and hurdles I have gone through over the decades
since 1978 when a Manpower Services Commission-run ‘Employment Rehabilitation Center's ‘Occupational Psychologist’ [sic] told me that my career difficulties stemmed
from “a birth defect” have benefited me nothing in terms of employment credit.
Right wing ‘welfare reform’ is not
really about rewarding effort and ‘saving disabled people from worthlessness’,
but the privatization of the welfare state and screwing the economically
vulnerable. Benefit sanctions and threat of sanctions are really a means of
unconscionable global corporations finding commercial profit in exploiting the
people they would previously have ‘parked’ as not worth the current time of day.
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