Employment advice for a disabled person.

Little compassionate story time (Yes, even the evil dark one known as I has compassion you know!)

This will read like an intro to a Ciao review but here goes.

When Sherry was team Leader on the Princes Trust, one of the team members was disabled. She had suffered from a stroke of some kind at the young age of 16 and had been partially paralysed, struggling with her speech and walking amongst other things. After a lot of Physiotherapy she made a great recovery and could walk with the aid of a stick and her speech is a lot better and comprehensible if you listen properly. Well, I went and visited Sherry’s princes trust team at Dartmoor and warmed to this girl and the amount of courage she had shown and the last day team challenge at Dartmoor was over hills and moors where she could not go. I volunteered to carry her on my back as it was only a couple of miles tops and she so wanted to be there when they reached the top. I made her walk when we got to a reasonably flat bit of moor and give her a lot of ribbing about her slowing us down etc, and she gave back as good as she got.

Well, since the team finished the trust back in December Sherry kept in touch with her and she has been to the shop a few times and helped out. She has done such a good job we want to take her on part time at least with the view to train her up to run her own shop or even our second shop when it opens.

Now we want her to get the best help she can both in her learning and also financially so I am looking for any advice from people who have either;

a) Are disabled and have managed to get grants for training etc.
b) Have helped disabled people get back to work and know what lines we need to take.
c) Have any information that can help us get more out of the system for this girl.

We are not after a penny of any grant for ourselves or any financial gain from this, just trying to make sure she gets every help possible to achieve her dreams.

Thanks, the dark one.

One option is to contact the charity that is most closely associated with her particular disability as they will have a good knowledge of the system and probably will have some specialists who look to get people back into the workplace and know their way around the funding and sponsorship options.

She also has to consider her own financial situation especially if the income she gets affects some benefits she may recieve.

I know at my former employers we made use of a scheme which employed some people with a particular disability in one of our cash handling centres, each individual was assessed on how productive they would be compared to a more able bodied individual, if they were say 70% asefficient then we paid them 70% of the going rate with the government making up the rest however all other benefits were the same as a full time person however I've been away too long and the contact I had in the company also left and the whole department was disbanded, our new Spanish owners did not have much of a corporate responsibility culture.

I would err on the side of caution Angus and check what she may lose by being employed, and how many hours she will be permitted to work without losing benefits. In a case like this where perhaps permanent damage has been imposed by the stroke, you have to be exceedingly careful in your approach because although she may in the short term be able to cope with a reduction in benefits that any employment is responsible for, long term it may affect her rights. I would personally telephone a hypothetical question to social security or any of the associations (don't know who there is now in the UK) to find out what her position is and also it may do her morale good to know you are looking into how you can help.

I think Angus shouldn't worry too much about digging too deep into what this lady might lose etc, as that is not his concern (it is hers)

The decision should be made on is the person capable of doing the job (with reasonable allowances, modifications etc). Anything else is tantamount to making a decision based on the disability, which we all know is illegal.

I have also been responsible for large scale recruitment and when I worked in Australia I was responsible for project managing a new call centre and needed something like 400 workers (flexible, part time, full time, nights you name it)

We were dealing with the government investment people, as anyone would be with that volume of jobs, but we liaised very closely with a local charity, as Atticusuk says. They even gave us input into the call centre fit out, we hired several people who had mobility problems, and it was great that they got their chance. We had motorised scooters zipping about all over the office!

I would think a charity could give great advice as perhaps the local small business enterprise group (whatever they are called these days)


http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=337

Has some links which might be interesting.

Quote :

I think Angus shouldn't worry too much about digging too deep into what this lady might lose etc, as that is not his concern (it is hers)

The decision should be made on is the person capable of doing the job (with reasonable allowances, modifications etc). Anything else is tantamount to making a decision based on the disability, which we all know is illegal.

Sorry perhaps that read wrongly. When I had my stroke, I was given a good allowance towards medical costs here in France, but lost them because of my own stubborness to do something useful. I worked only for three weeks and long term had to fight in order to be recognised as disabled. The work I did was less than 12 hours a week but made one hell of an impact on what I could claim back on medical expenses. I think the system is different in the UK and perhaps should not have commented, being ignorant of how the UK works these days.

The decision to employ her has been made and we are aiming at part time below the 16 hour mark she is allowed to work, that is not really the issue.

what I am trying to find is funding for her to go to college and learn about the retail industry and anything else that will assist her in her education.

Her health is great and she is now 20 so it has been 4 years since her illness and she improving daily, so I am not concerned about relapses etc, she needs a fair chance and as Helen said, I do not wnat to discriminate nor treat her differently.

Sure, there are better abled people out there to do the job physically, but none could bring her attitude and smile with them.

Sounds to me that the long-term goal here is to get the girl off benefits, so I think it's irrelevant to worry too much about that side of things.

In my temping days at the Criminal Cases Review Commission, I once spent a day updating a big ring-binder book of employment law. I know there was stuff in there about grants or, at the very least, tax breaks for modifying premises for disabled employees. But it's just too long ago. The cash is out there though, I'm sure of it.

The long term goal is to give someone who deserves and wants to get on in life, every opportunity to do so.

The more help I can find for her, the better the chance she has of progressing.

I think anyone who's shown the desire to get on in life deserves every opportunity, and I'm sure the help is out there.

I haven't got time to read through it today, but this page seems to have a lot of infromation on it.

Hope it helps.

Cheers oh wind of turtle, that was very, very useful.

Cool, I remembered Scope had done all those posters at train stations a few years back about employers being obliged to adapt their premises for disabled staff, so I figured they'd probably have some info on it somewhere.

Try www.skill.org.uk This is the National Bureau for students with disabilities and according to their web page, they can give advice on getting into colleges, grants, etc.

Phoning up your nearest colleges and speakin to the Student Advisors would also be good to, colleges and universities usually bend over backwards to help disables students!

Thanks Emma, will do.