Labour If you claim you can work from home . Doing What Exactly?
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The government obsession of saying disabled can work from home is becuase they are targeting the Capability for Work of c£400. They seething as an easy target...Sunak did a typically bent consultation which passed under the radar...have you not noticed they keep saying it needs reforming! You watch.. they have said only exception cases will be expected nit to work...you watch they will cancel it for most if not all
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Yes exceptional circumstances life long illness cancer active psychotic illness
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What about my wife's Catastrophic brain injury with 99% cognitive damage
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I'm sure that will fall under lifelong disability
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Seems thier rushing this all it's just one big mistake and who suffers us
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£6,000 is too small an amount. For example, abroad they came up with a way to treat the illness of a disabled person, but it costs £20,000. Savings in the amount of five phones are ridiculous.
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This is probably where the "head-swizzle" starts. I am guessing that the government would say that the employer should be covering the costs and vice versa. Most employers would look to government to offer grants to cover any set up costs, which might be supported by the government. Indeed for many years there were funds available to induce companies to become involved. These are never spoken about these days so I guess they were not austerity proof.
It is a very valid point as are the points from almost everyone on this thread. Getting more less-abled individuals back into work could be a really positive but only if they wanted & were able to do so. However there has to be a desire from employers towards all the accessibility, personnel and space/products. So it all does really come down from the property owner/employer to cover costs, and there doesn't seem to be a queue at the governments door.
For it to be a successful policy the positions need to be real jobs not token or minimum wage jobs and there needs to be a career path. The real hurdle is the employers, if they don't want to do hire us or don't think it is economically viable, they won't do it. Just saying that you are going to get more less-able individuals into work is pie in the sky unless you are going to really fleshed it out and be realistic. At one point there were targets which large employers had to meet and financial grants from government if there are adjustments which need to be done to ensure that the workplace was disabled friendly. These would need to be the same whether you were going into work or working from home and importantly, if you are working from home, there needs to be the ability to shut away your workspace so you have work/life balance.
Every matter that has been talked about here are really important and valuable questions/truths and hopefully ministers will be meeting with scope and other representative groups as well as employers to research what is possible and come up with realistic proposals and support. They also need to think about us as individuals with different capabilities even from another person with a similar condition.
Unfortunately if you are disabled it is rarely a single disability (even if it starts out that way). I've suffered with clinical depression for well over half my life with panic attacks and anxiety, because things were never treated by the mental health service the underlying PTSDs and separation/imposter syndrome were never treated and paranoia and agoraphobia have become further complications. Early this year I had issues at work and I went off with stress. I didn't leave my home since the beginning of March until a couple of weeks ago.
I had no interest in eating healthily or looking after myself and it has probably been the most depressed I have been this side of the millennium and a lot mirrors the worse time of my life which was almost 30 years ago. I was existing on chocolate, crisps, sweets, cakes, with an occasional rice and tuna or a roll with cold meat/cheese. My diet was so bad that my nails kept breaking and I've put six inches on around my waist. The later means that I now have physical issues, I get out of breath going to and have to get my breathing back under control, I get back pain from planting some 9cm pots of plants in the garden or even unloading the dishwasher.
I know being obese is not a handicap and people will say "you can do something about it" but my motivation and mental health are not in a place where I can and my medication levels are such that it makes losing weight even harder. My doctor has agreed that getting the mental health back on track is the priority especially as I am going through an ET at the moment. I do have light at the end of the tunnel as I have been accepted onto a year long therapy program with a local charity and am getting back into attending town council meetings as a councillor.
I was medically retired from my job when I was 32 (health was the excuse but coming out as gay and pointing out homophobia was the real reason) but I have been in employment for 29 out the 30 years since and only on benefits for about 6 months. I have always detailed my disability when applying for any employment as otherwise you cannot hold an employer to consider your underlying condition(s) if you haven't advised them. Yet now most of the companies hired to "help" people into work advise not to include it on an application or raise it during an interview. Basically their advice leaves the disabled person in jeopardy in the future. Additionally, using me as an example, if I apply for another job and list my most recent employer as a referee, they will provide the number of days that I have had on sick leave which would be a red flag to the interviewers especially with no mention of the disability. Hardly a glowing reference but one that many of us will probably have if we have been employed.
Anyway the point I'm was trying to explain by that is that when you have a disability, it is rarely a single issue. It might start out that way but often the disability leads to other disabilities or problems so the matter of employability is not straightforward. We are individuals and therefore lumping us together and saying that more disabled people should be employed is blasé and also, in my opinion could be classed as a "hate crime" as both governments are using weaponising our disabilities without actually having an honest and informed public discussion about the situation. When it comes to benefits, we are like asylum seekers relative to immigration and being used as a scapegoat. Yes there will be individuals who play the system, which is very hard to do, but the level of benefit fraud is so low that possibly only voter fraud is lower
So many employers don't want to hire us, either because of costs, lack of oversight if we're working from home, possible sick leave/capability and the government want to cut the benefits budget, so in reality neither will want to pay and many of us, who are forced into job hunting, will suffer the repeated rejections which make our mental health issues worse because of falling self-confidence and worth.
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The work coaches shuffle around different job centres. No idea how many leave the job.
I'm convinced mine has used me as a training tool for staff.
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Thanks Miss Mel, I really appreciate the good wishes. In many ways like everyone on here, I've been through some live questioning times but I also know I have been lucky to have been able to hold down work and do a lot to help others in my shoes, directly and indirectly. I've also managed to avoid the DWP as a client through most of it, but I have gone with people a lot of times and yes I've seen how they treat people (although not when someone has an advocate with them although I hear that they now try to stop you taking anyone with you to an appointment). I know that the turn over in disability work coaches here is as bad as everyone is reporting.
I did teach some reps from the DWP not long after the Tories were elected, most of them were still from the civil service days but the DWP was trying to ease them out of the business as they actually helped people, knew too much and they cost more compared to new staff as most original staff were still in unions.
Where I live is the 34th worst ward in the country in terms of deprivation. Employment opportunities are low unless you want to do over an hour commute each way per day (even then after train fares you won't be taking home minimum wage), we also have fuel poverty as well as having educational and health deprivation and the life expectancy for men is 10 years less than the average in Suffolk. I was born on the other side of Lake Lothing and that was (and I think still is) in the top 10 worst wards in the country (although the life expectancy is higher there). All of the above mean that there is also a lot of mental health issues and, I understand, recreational drug use. A new person who has just moved into our street tried to enlist me in setting up a Neighbourhood Watch in our area but most people living in the street would only call the police if they needed a crime number for insurance purposes.
Unfortunately we slip through the net here now as a merger of councils took place about five years ago and the deprived north east Suffolk, joined with the more affluent Suffolk coastal and they hide the appalling stats from here. If anything, things are getting worse around here. That is the problem with stats, although at district council level they have broken down a lot of the figures and it really doesn't look great. I do treat stats with a pinch of salt as they are so easy to manipulate, depend on how politicians choose their indices.
Even with all the negatives, I wouldn't choose to live anywhere else but then I have great memories of how the town was as a child, even when all around was ****. There are also some amazing volunteer and charity organisations who do their best to support people and have a wealth of experience as well as local councils which do work hard to tackle the deprivation without much in the way of resources.
As I said at the beginning, I have has a rollercoaster of a life (without the highs emotionally) and most of my working life and voluntary work has been helping those who have different needs rather then more needs, and that is what has kept me going.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/TheCivilService/comments/15cpqhh/dwp_work_coach_vs_dwp_disability_services_and/
[deleted] 1 yr. ago
I have experience as a Work Coach, I am sensitive, caring and people focused person, hence I was interested in the role. Well, 2 years later I am depressed, cynical and have hard time feeling my emotions. I find it hard to trust others. I isolate myself from others and the world. It has driven to a dark place. You have to encounter so much despair, so much injustice, often times you have conflict, liars and manipulators. It reveals to you the worst of what happens to people in life. How unfair and terrible the world can be.
It is nice when you meet nice claimants, and you can genuinely help good people at times. But it's not worth the depression, stress and cynicism.
Legal_Arm_5927 1 yr. ago
My thoughts exactly. DM roles can be quite varied if you're working on a broad range of decisions for means tested benefits like UC against relatively "fair" criteria such as how much capital a person has. However PIP is designed to be difficult to obtain, arduous for the customer and in some circumstances impossible to get with out teams of evidence and going to tribunal.WCs get the positive experience of congratulating people on getting jobs, helping them obtain skills and recognise skills they already have but aren't awar of. I know what my preference would be.
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I worked in job centre oh years ago I went all in wanting to do a good job but the toxicity started at top and all way down to staff they was overworked under valued no one wanted to stay they was so miserable tired and who suffers we do it was all driven by targets how many people you can get into work and you do end up resenting everyone everyday I'd be walking up to the building I'd be preying it was on fire not with anyone in it ofcourse depressing place
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