Published on 12, July, 2020
I wondered if anyone has had experience of Jobcentre Plus Disability Employment Advisers.
I've seen a text by the Minister of State for Disabled People extolling the virtues of these advisers, and given what I've heard myself indirectly, wondered if the reality was as optimistic as he claims.
According to the Minister of State these Disability Employment Advisers can provide support and advice for disabled people who need help finding and retaining employment.
Disability Employment Advisersat Jobcentre Plus can refer individuals to specialist programmes, including Work Choice, and can use the professional expertise of Work Psychologists, who specialise in working with disabled people.
Jobcentre Plus's Disability Employment Advisers can advocate with employers on the individual's behalf and help employers to explore job solutions such as the restructuring of job's tasks/environment, or the provision/change of equipment.
Work Choice provides tailored support to help disabled people who face the most complex barriers to employment, where it is appropriate for the individual.
Laudable as these Disability Employment Advisers seem to be, has anyone actually met one? Are they helpful? Or do they still know very little especially about autism?
I have found my Disability Employment Adviser to be very helpful - unlike the rest of Job Centre Plus.
Work Choice, on the other hand, was a terrible experience. Despite knowing I have Asperger's, I was treated as though I had learning disabilities (for example, I was asked if wanted to go to the toilet) and they kept changing agreements, meeting times, etc. Work Choice was meant to help me obtain work trials rather than interviews but did not do so.
I could add more but just typing this little piece has caused my neck muscles to start tensing and my head to hurt.
I would write a formal letter addressed to the Job Centre explaining your disability and bring it with you to your next appointment. Ensure it states how many times you have been fobbed off and on what dates. Question whether they are behaving in a disciminatory fashion, quote the Equality Act 2010 and tell them you will be seeking advice. Hand it over and say you will sit there until they get a disability advisor to see you.
I suppose it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Disability Confident is just a piece of window dressing dreamt up by the "public schoolboys",and doesn't therefore have any real embodiment.
Trying ever so hard not to be cynical about our coalition government, it might equally be the case that they are investing a lot of money in employer networks and are being entirely genuine about the various schemes in support of these objectives. Just as usual, they haven't yet got it off the ground, hence why I couldn't find out anything about it on the NAS website.
The thing is, for Disability Confident to work there has to be a mechanism that connects unemployed disabled to participating employer schemes. One mechanism would have to be Jobcentre Plus, by means of the DEAs identifying likely beneficiaries and introducing them to the employer networks.
Consequently, your experience Stephen Mckeating would seem to imply that Disability Confident is just a cynical ploy by David Cameron to get votes. Because the level of obstruction you are encountering certainly suggests that.
Or the more likely explanation frankly is that the bunch of illiterate thhickos employed in Jobcentre Plus wouldn't have a clue about the higher implications of their institutionalised obstructivism. Nor I suspect does David Cameron actually know what a bunch of layoubouts are lurking in Jobcentre Plus - and not on the client side.
But it might work in your favour just to suggest that the Government is spending lots of money on Disability Confident, but it needs Jobcentre Plus to connect unemployed disabled with participating employers, and that you intend otherwise to make a formal complaint to the Minister of State for Disabled People, via your own MP, that your local Jobcentre Plus is undermining a pet initiative by David Cameron, using taxpayers money during a recession.
Personally I take the view that most people working in Jobcentre Plus can only have been recruited by press gangs off the long term unemployed that don't have a good excuse.
And the account of your experiences at one does seem to prove my point.
I signed on officially on 5th of November this year. I said in my initial interview that I would like to speak to the disability advisor, the person assessing me at the time was quite rude, saying I didn't look like I needed one (Apparently a disability has to be physically obvious!) But after I insisted he said he would 'queue' them in their system.
The following friday (8th) when I came in to sign on, I asked what was happening with respect to the DEA and he told me that they only worked three days a week. (Which did not explain anything)
The next Tuesday (12th) I came in to see my advisor, I told her that I was struggling with applications, interviews etc. I also informed her I had had issues using their website which had several vague and ambiguous parts to it. I asked her when I would be seeing the DEA as I felt they would be able to help me further. She told me, once again, that the DEA onlly works 3 days a week.
I have been in once more since then (Fridaay 22) and was once again told "Three days" I do not have an appointment now untill the 6th of December. I feel like I will not be seen to by the disability advisor at all, and that they are simply ignoring my requests.
My functioning state means I don't know when I will ever again be able to be in a position to be job-hunting. That's what years of trying to "be normal" does for you.