Is this effectively bullying going people with SEND into unsuitable jobs?

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqlke33

So reading between the lines the below policy about getting young people off benefits into work this is effectively part of the strategy on SEND/welfare spending. The question is what are the young people in benefits.....many will have send an h as autism and ADHD so jobs in construction and hospitality will be completely inappropriate and maybe harmful. Can you imagine the sensitive autistic 19 year old man working on a building site or the highly anxious going women taking on the brutal work culture of hospitality when companies are cutting staff to the bone because of increased employment costs.

Is this a reasonable policy or one to appease reform voters where reform seem to be waging a war against SEND costs?

Its not the job, its the culture.

I have adhd and possibly asd and worked for years in a well known pizza chain going up to supervisor level. Never had any major issues. I've also worked in independent pubs.

I've also worked in three that were terrible. In one, the staff were not listened to and treated like shit- there were a high number of Europeans working there. In another, it was miserable customers complaining. In another it was a wierd cult culture of people fawning around the owner, I wasn't prepared to flirt with him and they knew I wasn't.

If done correctly this could be a wonderful opportunity for young people, if done wrong it could indeed push young special needs and disabled adults into unsuitable jobs and ultimately push them further away from a fulfilling, independent life.

Everyone is an individual, and while some people with Autism may excel in some parts of hospitality or Construction (I cant think of any though). On the whole i cant' think of two less suitable carers for Autistic people than hospitality and Construction.

dunno 😂
if I had my time back I probably would
but to be honest I think not claiming it was beneficial in some way
I guess I was lucky that I could afford to pay for extra lessons for his dyslexia and lots of clubs and activities to help him grow

I reread the article and agree it doesnt mention send at all. It looks like it could be aimed more at the half of NEETs who dont report health issue or maybe just any that want to take part.

There are lots of people with autism and ADHD working in academia, which is a far more mentally demanding role than either construction or hospitality.

No one ever says "I can't think of a less suitable carers for autistic people than academia" though. It would be borderline discriminatory.

The point being, you can't 1) make blanket statements about groups of people; and 2) Only claim that it's the low paid/status jobs that are "less suitable".

Why can't people with SEND work in hospitality or construction? What jobs do you think they can do? Just made up ones that are token jobs that no employer actually wants or needs?

They're human beings with skills and abilities and given the opportunity to learn and with support people with learning or physical differences should be able to do many careers.

I am sure you mean well but you sound ableist saying this.

Why is it only young people that get the help?
I would think it’s the people in their 40s who are newly diagnosed so have never been supported into work or held down a job and are seen as pretty unemployable because of that who are the ones we should be helping into work.

TBF DS who has ASD and dyspraxia would probably be a disaster either in hospitality or a building site. He's very clumsy due to the dyspraxia is very shy and isn't a great communicator. Thankfully he's got an apprenticeship as a software engineer which suits him perfectly, but he'd probably be pretty useless if someone tried to shoe horn him into either of these roles.

I disagree. Assuming people with send are only capable of working in hospitality or construction is the only infantilising thing here.

Yes, I can imagine it.
Guess what, nobody asked my generation whether we were SEND or highly anxious (women), to survive and have our basic dignity in privacy of our own living as adults, we certainly had to deliver at work.
And we did.
It depends how much you wanted certain stuff in life, and yes, I quit the workforce when "married rich" and yes, most cannot afford their own living spaces anymore nowadays.
It's shit, but if this system was in place in my time, then most of us would probably have not worked. The anxiety and damage from our upbringing was palpable, but invisible. It just wasn't a possibility where I come from and yes, since early teenage years I thought about how to avoid it all and did.

I think Alex Polizzi is involved with this
https://teamdomenica.com/

There is a young woman with Downs who works the till in a local supermarket, she is totally capable, and always very cheerful.

I think the Domenica in question is the niece of Nigella Lawson / daughter of Dominic Lawson. So obviously very well-connected family able to pull all sorts of strings. Good on them for turning this into an organisation to widen access and get more people into meaningful work.

Just another point on suitability/industry - one of my autistic traits, and quite common in autistic people, is that I am very routine-led and rule-abiding. If my job is to wake up at 4am and, for example, work solo to set ovens going in a bakery, I will do that rain or shine and if I need to walk miles to work because my car's broken down I will do that. I would genuinely rather harm myself than risk the possibility of letting anyone else down. It's not about money or even principle, but mainly about expectation. Now obviously there are downsides to being so rigid, and don't I know it, but that's an example where that kind of rigid thinking is an advantage.

How long ago was this? I know it was happening in the nineties and two thousands and a while ago there was a social media campaign......Boycott Workfare.

I’ve spent a lot of the week pissing about on MN looking at rules around my DSS (26 yrs, neonatal brain damage, aggressive behaviour) doing some work experience on a construction site.

The big, nay HUGE, issue facing us is the building site insurance. There are simply no schemes that cover this. The ‘employer’, or DSS, would have to carry the cost.

I’ve seen other schemes where young people with disabilities pay £40 A DAY out of their benefits (or their parents pay it) to gain work experience in charity-run cafés, to cover these insurance/indemnity/admin costs.

So DSS would be looking at paying £200 a week to try to go to work. That’s without the stress of the benefit claim disruptions that will inevitably accompany it, that he can’t manage. DP is heading for another heart attack at this point with the strain of everything, not least what will happen to DSS in the future?

I’d appreciate any advice, tbh.

This is not about SEND. It is not mentioned at all in the article, so I am confused by the thread title.

Perhaps they’d prefer a cleaning role. Indoors with no customer interaction.

We cannot afford large minorities of the population who are too special/limited to work. Children with SEND, and I have one myself, need to get out, engage with life and try things. It’s the only way to find where you fit.

I personally know two young autistic women who dropped out of uni because of their social skills. In both cases they got hospitality jobs - one in a cafe, one in a pub. It changed their lives. They got a fast track education in dealing with others in a socially acceptable way. One returned to uni and completed her degree, still working at old cafe in holidays. The other is preparing to return to uni in Sep 26 just with a decent amount of savings in her account.

This was about 14 years ago.
I have fortunately been in work since so I don’t know what it’s like.

I’m all for encouraging people to work and have purpose in life but they need to be realistic about it.

Can I ask what other parents do regarding their young adult DC doing work experience (and work) about insurance, if they are prone to aggressive behaviour against others, themselves and/or property?

This seems to be our sticking point 😕

I can’t help you @GildedPaulieWalnuts , our struggles are different. Yours being more difficult. But I didn’t want to just ignore you. I hope you can find something. I can imagine that having some job experience would do your DSS good.

I am wracking my brain to think of outside jobs that don’t involve dangerous equipment or customer service- I assume those would be the most sensitive to your DSS becoming aggressive.

i think given the option isn’t too bad tbh, I’ve done autism work schemes with an office company and with my local council working on the bins and constriction, I found the manual labour stuff a lot simpler and more suited to me and friendly for autism.
I think opening up more options and ideas is a good thing, as lots of the autism work schemes tend to basically be computer science or supermarkets.
lots of autistic people want to get into the workplace (the nas annual stats thing) but can’t, helping them into it, to me feels an overall win, there will undoubtedly be some shit workplaces, but having a job, makes it a lot easier to get another and not falling into the cv gap especially with a disability.

I said 'any field' in my post so unsure what you're getting at here.