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Has anyone tried these council run "Pathways to work" schemes?

DigbyDevon

Hello,

I have recently started on a council run pathways to work scheme.

I have experience but due to a combination of poor luck, poor health and the job market I have found myself out of work for nearly two years now. I signed up after finding Indeed, Reed and the like were unhelpful.

However I can't say i'm impressed to be honest, my job coach is struggling to build relationships with employers, she really struggles on computers and I'm not sure what the benefit of our weekly meetings are? I have to end up doing the things we are supposed to do in session or the next 3-4 weeks will be spent just doing forms. 

I am a bit disappointed after attaching so much hope to this scheme, has anyone else had any experience for better or worse with a similar scheme?

Parents

  • I've been on a couple of them, one at the job centre and one at some outsourced place, I was lucky in some sense in that I'd been kicked off incapcaity benefits even though it was obviously to the woman in the job centre that I should be on it and encouraged me to reapply as soon as I could and didn't hassle me to much. The other one was flummoxed by my not having a career path and having done so many different things in my working life and by my disablities too. None of them actually did anything to help me find suitable work, they couldn't even come up with a suitable CV, there was no training or anything else offered and anything I suggested either wasn't available or not encouraged.

    Ultimately they couldn't find work or jobs that didn't exist, I was also to old for many training, apprentice and entry level stuff.

    I came to the conclusion that it was more about the government being seen to be doing something and spending quite a bit of money doing it, than anything that could be of real help. I still don't know what a coach actually does, I just used to sit about with mone and have a laugh.

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Hello, was that the old Work Programme by any chance? I was on it and they did not seem to know what to do with me other than park me on the scheme. I also went on a disability employment scheme and that was much the same, box ticking. I too, have done so many different jobs that my CV looks like a mess. I agree with your point on Government political point scoring instead of doing more to reduce autistic unemployment.  

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  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Hello, was that the old Work Programme by any chance? I was on it and they did not seem to know what to do with me other than park me on the scheme. I also went on a disability employment scheme and that was much the same, box ticking. I too, have done so many different jobs that my CV looks like a mess. I agree with your point on Government political point scoring instead of doing more to reduce autistic unemployment.  

Children
  • in reply to LucyLandRover

    I can't remember Lucy.

    I didn't feel badly treated, it felt more realistic to be honest, I don't think any of the places I went to were charities, they just got people refered to them by the job centre, they were't specialists for disabilities.

    Everything in Wales is a bit different to how it is in England or the other Devolved Nations, our charities are different, even something like AGEUK isn't actually UK wide, you have to go to the one for your country or area.

    A lot of the work here is seasonal, zero hour and low paid contracts, so when they said they couldn't find a suitable job they meant it because there really wasn't anything to apply for and it wasn't just me either, almost everyone there was in the same boat.

    A lot of employers won't touch someone who's been self employed with a barge pole, we're to hard to manage apparently, disabled people are ok if you're in a wheelchair, if not they don't know what to do with you and older people are to expensive, i.e, our minimum wage is higher than that of an 18 year old.