Work Choice
Submitted by catref1 on Tue, 18/01/2011 - 10:24pm
I understand that Work choice was introduced in October 2010 to help the unemployed with disabilities to gain employment.
Can anyone tell me what actially happens on these schemes i.e is there interview help / work experience and are the sessions one to one or are they group sessions ? How often are clients expected to attend the sessions ?
The Direct-Gov website only gives brief information.
Many thanks
You may get a bit of insight about the full process from reading the DWP Provider Guide for Work Choice which you can find here:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/supplying-dwp/what-we-buy/welfare-to-work-services...
How will these guidlines help anyone who needs regular time off due to the alternating nature of their disability or illness day to day?.. or women with hormonal illness who need time off everal days a month due to heavy bleeding, pain, nausia, migraine and incontinance issues but whos illness is still not recognised by the atos assesments nor the government as grounds of disability, but which is in other countries?
please indicate, as too many people in these circumstances face sanctions over attendance issues and cannot get sick letters from their gps, who refuse to issue for hormonal problems, or who cannot issue on time due to waiting times for appointments or who refuse to come out to people eg, with menieres, to issue a sicknote for that day/week when the person is housebound with verigo?
I have strongly felt for 25 years now that not enough rpovision is given to helping people in these situations and too many sanctions are stacked against their personal circumstances
been on the program 5/6 weeks, have to attend a job club 4 hrs / week whether it is productive or not (someitmes find 4 or 5 jobs, more often don't find any but you have to apply for 2 or 3 just to 'tick their boxes'). It's looking through the Echo and on the direct.gov websites. They don't seem to trust you to do this at home ! Staff are nice enough but if someone upsets them or doesn't want to bide by their rules then they seem to get harsh on everyone. I wonder if they get paid for 'number of people through the door' so to speak. Also, never been asked to give them feedback ! I know what you mean Swansong, when you have a disability like this, has happended to me, you either have to turn up for work and get pulled up for'poor performance' because you can't do your best on days like this, or, if you stay home, you get pulled up for too many days sickness. Either way, you risk the sack and it's not good to have this hanging over you.
I was once banned from a jobclub for poor attendance and thrown off a work placement for too much time off in 3 months - but, if youve been up all night in pain, you colapse exhausted in he morning and thats it. or if your on the toilet all day, you just cant go far.
I can never see anyone employing me in my life time now - ive been out of the jobs market for 25 years except for voluntary work had hoc and the odd gov placement which i dont see as a job.. 23 of those years were as a carer.. 16 of those years i have also been ill, 5 of those years now chronically...i have 3 conditions that are incurable, 2 will steadilt get worse. one threatens to make me totally deaf and loose my balalnce and one could land me in a wheelchair, the other can cause cancer/diabeties and heart disease and is made worse by stress and poor diet..
im in a no win situation -
my only carer now is sick themselves with renal failure so we have ended up as each others carers now.. i have no car/no transport/ no training/ no over all work experiance except from voluntary work/ failing hearing and eyesight/ regular vertigo attacks each week, daily pain and exhaustion and a habit of falling over or fainting in public if i dont have regular rests throught out the day - a full day in a vol job means the next day i rest.. and so on...i can only see me working if its in very sheltered flexable employment, or self employed.. but doing what god only knows as the vol work i do never employs people paid, and its political campigning on behalf of carers and the disabled, manily, like now, working on a laptop while in bed full of painkillers.
Id like to hear ll your opinions on such a situation as this regards training and help, as so far ive been refused dla ive been accussed of benefits freud for failing to inform on time of a change in circumstances, at the time i was in and out of hospital and housebound and on crutches and koshed on morphine, and now I may have to sell the family home in order to just survive, the home my grandfather built and my mother was born in and where i have lived for 44 years... its heart breaking and i worry all the time 24 hr a day and i cant see a future at all, none, except harassment from the government and dwp etc and no prope real sympathetic help what so ever...
by the way the typos are due to my eye sight as i cannot see the keys properly until my stronger bifocals arrive - i am not illiterate. I have problems focusing due to my eyes going into spasms and having floating shadows in them all the time. I had to give up my hobby due to this - i was a craft worker i used to make models for friends and family, and do needlepoint etc. Now I cannot even thread a needle .. i have to wait for someone to do it for me. Its greatly frustrating and equally so when the things i enjoyed and wanted to make a living from have been robbed from me by my health
Derek, have just emailed you
My experience is very negative & I think you would be very interested to hear it. Can you give me let me know if you are interested as a professional journalist or are you doing a sort of survey for the DWP / Job Centre? I will then be happy to email you the details (in confidence).
Catref, I can assure I have no connection with DWP whatsoever and my interest is purely journalistic. I would really welcome the opportunity to speak with you if possible.
Catref - not heard from you. I hope you are able to participate in this article.
Derek - id be interested to know more of what your investigating and writing about and which journal it is for.
Derek, I'm writing it up now. Hopefully I will email it to you this morning. You may need to edit it a bit - the advisor I had may identify with it and there would be reprocussions for me. (I have the advisor down to give me a reference).
Swansong, if you would like to give me your email address, we can maybe 'support' each other (my issues are a bit different to yours but it sometimes helps to have someone to chat to from time to time ?). How to do this, I've no idea because if we put our e-mail addresses on here, the Work Choice people may identify with us?
Perhaps,we could both e-mail Derek and if he is willing, he would pass on my e-mail to you ?
just emailing to you now
Swansong, the article is for "Disability Now" and will look at the quality of services provided to people with disabilities. In particular, I want to look at the client experience and whether they feel they are getting a decent service.
Yesterday I interviewed Anne Begg MP to get the view of the W&P select committee and I also want to speak to a couple of providers. But the core of the article will be to discuss the experience of clients who have been on Work Choice/ Workstep, used Access to Work, or other disability services. I am particularly interested in talking to individuals whi feel let down by existing provisions.
If you would like to know more I am happy to telephone and give you more details. My email is shown above, so feel free to contact.
Thanks
Derek, may I make an observation?
You stated earlier that you "have been invited by a major magazine to write an article exploring the quality of service provided to disabled people accessing welfare to work programmes" and that "in particular, [you] want to hear from anyone who feels the service they received let them down or failed in some way".
Although you then go on to say "equally, I am happy to hear 'success stories', but as you will appreciate the final article needs to be balanced and reflect the state of service provision today, rather than a 'marketed' notion of how things should be."
I can't help but feel that there's a bit of a contradiction there. If you truly want to provide a balanced view, why are you particularly keen to hear the bad stuff? You again say in the above post that you're interested in talking to individuals who feel let down by existing provision. Doesn't sound too balanced to me mate, but rather like you've made your mind up!
(*disclaimer - I am not involved in any way with specialist disability provision*)
Dan - possibly reading too much in here, Derek does say in his first post.Also we don't know what other sources of information he has. it may well be that at the moment he has just good news and is looking for the other side of the coin. if indus were the sole source of information then your comments may be right.
since its not (select committee members already seen) it is journalistically correct to try to find bad stories. the harder it is to find them then potentially the better the service.
you then get judgement that attempts to rate the validity and value of stories. you may get lots of bad stories but if all on the same topic and of minor points and in one locations you would tend to discount them.
see it is easy to make assumptions based on limited information and not considering the wider picture --- it is clear Dan that your heart, if not your point, is in the right place.
I also am not affiliated to a disability organisation or any journalist
Dan - the simple reality is that providers are willing to give me success stories in abundance. On top of that, most of the larger providers have press and media relations people who are delighted to provide copy. Unfortunately, disabled clients who have a grievance, or are generally dissatisfied with the service they receive have no similar facility, nor do they have any real campaign group or forum to express their discontent.
The article will not take a "let's kick the sector" stance unless the broad consensus of opinion demands I report it that way. As I am going to interview (or have already) individuals as diverse as ERSA, CESI and Anne Begg MP, the chair of the Work and Pensions select committee, I feel hopeful the final product will reflect the views of both providers and disabled people.
If you feel you have a point you would like to contribute for the article I am happy to speak to you. My contact details are shown above.
Thanks both for your replies. Sadly I have nothing to contribute Derek, as I'm not involved in this specialist provision at all, and good to hear that you're going for a more balanced approach to how I interpreted your words.
JobFish, I fear that "it is journalistically correct to try to find bad stories" says more about modern day journalism and readers' appetites for gore than it does about how objective reporting should be........
Fortunately I'm not much into gore ... now where did I put my phone hacking kit? lol
W.E.F next week, I'm going on to 'Next Step'. I want to be optomistic as I really want a job but hope it's better support and more tailored to the individual than Work Choice proved to be. The first step is to update my CV. My CV doesn't let me down as I manage to get interviews. It's the interviews that let me down. The session on Interview skills coaching is later. I've had so much interview coaching though, and read so many books on what to say and what not to, possible answers to competency questions, I could write a book myself ! I just 'go to pieces' and forget everything when I'm in the interview room !
Catref1
im in an opposite boat, im told over and over my interview skills are excellant, but my cv lets me down badly due to the long gaps in it and lack of proper training - something im hoping to try rectify with voluntary work based around my limitations and not pushing me beyond them.
wish you luck with next step- hope it helps