Disabilities and finding work

[Kaloki]

Article here

What are your thoughts on it? I can't write much now, but will be back later.

If you are disabled, how have you found job hunting? Does it make a difference if you are looking for skilled or unskilled work?

Job hunting...In 3 years of being unemployed, I applied for over 200 jobs (unskilled as my disbaility bars me by law from my previous, skilled profession, and can't afford to retrain). I had to declare my disbaility on the application form. I never once got an interview.

Now that I no longer have to declare my disability on the application form, I am (tbh) left with a quandary. If I don't declare on the form, get an interview and get given the job and accept it - when do I tell them about my disability? It will affect my work at some point, so I will have to tell them. If I tell them before my probationary eriod is up, they can just refuse to keep me on (how do I prove it's disability related?), if I don't tell them before probationary period is up and my disability does affect me - they're not going to appreciate the lack of honesty, and they won't keep me on at the end of the probationary period.

AND is it fair to employers to tae someone on that may require frequent sick leave due to their disability, thus lowering productivity, causing extra cover costs etc? I can see both sides of the argument TBH. I wouldn't want to be the one making policies on this issue!

I have a dx of BPD and spent 18 months seeking work without success. I have a BSc and MSc and applied for hundreds of jobs without success, both skilled and unskilled. After a while I realised that I needed to take time to re-evaluate and that the constant rejections were doing me more harm than good.

I receive DLA and Income Support so financially I don't need to be in work. These days I'm focusing on my health, using my time to do volunteer work, paint, study and look after my children. It keeps me busy enough and I'm probably happier than I would be dealing with workplace stress.

I want to go to do some part time work when youngest starts secondary school, I have irratic mobility issues, it is not looking like it is going to be promising really from the article. I only get small amount of dla about £18pw, no income support etc...

I was pretty much driven off my course that would have led to a job. I'm now writing childrens books so I can choose my own hours, if I'm too tired I can sleep. I heard that I will get £18.95 in DLA, I get a little extra tax credit and nothing else. I have MS, I don't think I'll ever get a different job, you can't have a day off because you are too exhausted to move, it makes you unreliable in their eyes.

Loudlass That's the problem I have with it too. You do have to tell them really, especially if you require allowances to be made. So this new law just doesn't make much sense to me.

Mummie I have the same problem, I lost my last job due to erratic mobility. Some days work was fine, some days I couldn't move. They didn't want an unreliable worker, they also didn't like me only being able to tell them in the morning, rather than in advance.

Riven That's the thing isn't it? If you can't get interviews to start with the new disability discrimination laws don't help.

secret Mental health and work are an awful combination. I've found myself lying on job applications because I know damned well that if i tell them I've had several breakdowns in which I couldn't work, it isn't going to help me.

belle That's awful :(

I don't know about anyone else, but I've encountered a few people who seem to think that as I cannot get work right now (and don't know when I could, if ever), that I should put everything else in my life on hold? Planning for in case I'm never able to hold down a standard 9-5 job is seen as defeatist, and discouraged. I'm 26 years old, and not allowed to even consider having a family as my only aim should be finding work in a job market which is dismissive at the least.

I have received a serious mental health dx in the past (same as secret). I do not declare it.

I work with a man who is in a wheelchair and I have no idea of his condition , but he is the size of a 5 year old child. He is trilingual and works as a computer programmer. He has never been out of work when he didn't want to be.

I have a few disable friends, some work, some don't. The first three that spring to the top of my head work at the BBC, the local council and Tescos. All are wheelchair users. Apart from the one at the BBC, the two others feel like they were employed to be the 'token disabled person', and were employed more on the basis of an equal opportunities policy, rather than on their merits. All of them are perfectly capable of doing well at their jobs, and it makes me so angry that they are made to feel this way.

My DH has just started back at work after a 10 year absence due to a neurological condition. For the last two years he has sent out 100's of applications and received only two "Thankyou but no" letters the rest didn't bother. He has to declare his condition to any employer and came across his current job through his local Shaw Trust who put him forward. He has an HND in Civil Engineering that he worked extremely hard for 12 years ago but that is now no use to him.

I don't think any amount of legislation will address discrimination, because no amount of legislation can mitigate attitudes. And in many ways, I think the legislation can make things worse, firstly by providing disabled people with a false sense of protection an secondly by creating the either-disclose-it-or-don't-expect-any-help paradox that Loudlass describes. It's exactly where I'm stuck, too.

not sure if anyone is interested but there is a facebook group - has many links to other anticuts pages
www.facebook.com/#!/blacktriangle1?v=info

Definitely breastmilk, I think in a lot of ways it has made it harder.

Where ARE all these jobs exactly?
They don't exist and if they do there's a lot of non-disabled people applying for them.

Unless employers need to make up some sort of quotient they're really not bothered.

That's also true tallwivglasses, it is difficult enough without the shortage of jobs.

I do have sympathy for some employers, as some companies cannot afford to make so many concessions. But it leaves those of us with disabilities in a very awkward position, especially if you have a disability which could be worked around. And with them making it harder to be declared unfit for work, it just means more vulnerable people struggling to make ends meet.

So true tallwivglasses and Kaloki

That's why employers that do have a policy choose disabled people that are obviously disabled so that those on the outside can see what a fantasticaly diverse employer they are. But they are often disabled people that don't need any consessions made for them. Like hiring a wheelchair user for a job sitting behind a desk or a computer in a building that by law has to have disabled access for the public anyway.

My DS1 is currently being supported by this organisation in his search for work. So far they are pretty amazing!

www.employ-ability.org.uk/

(sorry,no good at doing a link).