Overhaul Australian Disability Employment Services ! 

Unemployment is a known indicator in poverty and poor health outcomes.
Not getting a job will be a terrible blow once you are a 60yo unemployment payment recipient, with a disability, and hoping to take a final retirement style holiday or buy a new car. Taking a holiday, or purchasing your dream car, is something you have probably already realised, is never going to happen.  

In this time of global economic uncertainty, our most vulnerable people, our citizens with disabilities, are being left to live out their lives on poverty level income; on welfare payments.

The Australian governments disability employment systems are not helping!!. 

I am calling for an overhaul of the Disability Employment Services system, which is embarassingly - crap. 

Having been a client of these services now myself, for over 10years, I am utterly disgusted they have never talked with me about my skills set, suggested particular skills I could build on, suggested any particular course of action to improve my circumstances, referred me to any other service, or recommended a single job or employer I might contact for employment. ! 

It is more than just laziness not to help people with disabilities gain employment through disability employment services, it is negligence and abuse . 

If you are a client of a Disability Employment Service or a Disability Management Service, you might understand what I am talking about. They are not helping me get any work, not contacting employers trying to get me a job, and not making me feel confident about seeking employment. I feel more like a waste of space! Maybe you, or someone you know, has had the same, or a similar experience?? 

The following are some ideas and suggestions about how we could, in theory, improve Disability Employment Services to actually help people with a disability find a way into meaningful paid employment. With a view to help them achieve the normal life, that people without disabilities take for granted, reaching a state of financial autonomy and independence and achieving some of their lifelong dreams. 

It is true, that some people with a disability, do not really care if they get employment or not, and so cruising along applying for jobs they will never even get an interview for, is, not a problem. But this is where the abusiveness and negligence of the Disability Employment Services sector lies. They are blatently failing to assist people with disabilites in their job search, despite all of their claims, service quality frameworks and performance requirements. 

This is one of the pages at the Services Australia, Disability Employment Services web page which makes 5 claims..

Looking more closely at this list, my experience is that these 5 claimed provisions of Disability Employment Services do not occur.!!

My personal experience of Disability Employment Services is that they assist clients to complete job searches, in order to continue to recieve their centrelink payment, and nothing more. 

They do not have discussions with you about; your skills, or improving your skills, or your readiness for work, or assist you with writing your resume, or with interview skills, they do not refer you to any vacancies or employers and they do not review your job applications looking for how you may have been discriminaed against, or how to improve your applications. 

I personally feel more unlikely to gain employment using a Disability Employment Services provider than if I did not use one.

These services simply treat me as though I am a dole cheat rather than a person with a disability and barriers to gaining employment. 
They do not want to work with me until I achieve something, they are not interested in making any kind of plan, they will not discuss anything, and to be honest, I find them abrupt and insensitive and every appointment with them , rushed from start to finish. 

If you are looking for a Disability Employment Services provider and you happen to find their performance review report cards, please do not be fooled. They are not achieving anything for people with disabilities from my experience of over 10 consecutive years of rejection for every job I applied for. 

Those of us who do want to work, and need to work, and do not enjoy living on below poverty line welfare payments, feel frustrated and fed up with these very dodgy so called employment services, which are more concerned with us completing participation requirements than actually helping us get work. 

Here are some Solutions::

1. Social Situation & Social Contact Requirements.
A significant important component of helping a person with a disability, to achieve career success is to assess their social situation.
This assessment is critical to assisting anyone. It is so fundamental to career success or failure that it should be a mandatory area of investigation for any unemployed person. 

Social position, given by a basic social infrastructure assessment, opens up areas of vulnerability in the psychological profile of the individual, and shows exactly how and why they might have motivational issues, or are likely to be lacking in motivation. 

It also helps figure out their capacity in terms of commitment and stamina to taking up employment, or to embarking on a totally new career, if this is necessary or desirable. 

Some people do not have much feeling about their social situation, so it's impact will be less, however social situation or social position and social infrastructure, is very important because it shows our strengths skills weaknesses and vulnerabilities. 

The happiest people have warm secure connections to others in the community, therefore social situation is a very important factor in our job searching. 

I recommend that employment services take a holistic approach to helping a Jobseeker find long-term employment and stability, to get off income support welfare. In my opinion, this is the only way to be assured success. Therefore including steps in a job plan, to address the social situation of a client, is very important , if not also critical. 

No employment program that fails to address social circumstances, is ever going to work for a long-term unemployed person. Many people with disability become the long term unemployed. 
Social connections protect people psychologically, and help expandour job searching reach. Everyone knows why social networks help us so much in sales, and the same reason applies to career success. 

People need to be able to make successful social connections and sell themselves or their products and ideas. It truly is an important life skill to know how to use the gossip tree that is, social connections. Disability employment clients should be trained in use of this skill. 

The disability employment services program could be improved and could achieve outstanding success helping clients with disabilities gain employment, if they simply helped clients learn and develop the skills of making social connections. Both in their day to day lives, and in their career. 

By using this focus as a fundamental part of Disability employment services, they could help clients to actively expand their social connections, which would ultimately improve their job seeking success. 

This could occur by encouraging social participation in social contact events and networking events or networking activities, and incorporating these events into the job search plan. 

Social contact, other than for job application purposes, is not a current requirement of job search plans.
However having a requirement to engage in contact events either over the phone in phone calls, or in-person through promotional introductions, would help job seekers greatly.
At the moment, it is too easy for disability services clients to get away with sending emailed job applications that never get them the job. There is very little need, to speak to a real person, assess if discrimination occurred, or ask for feedback.

Improving social contact skills for employment includes speaking to real people, making new friends and being good at introducing yourself.
These skills are needed for all job seekers. 

Associated social contact events, which help people make use of and improve social skills, could be specified and included on the job search plan. 
Such as; attending suitable Networking events and conferences, training courses, market research surveys, fundraisers, tree plantings, rubbish clearing, weeding, soup kitchens, voluntary work, market stalls, public speaking, group team sports or community events, special days and occssions.
These activities could be encouraged by Disability employment providers, listed on job search plans and made either compulsory or not compulsory depending on the situation of the client. 

2. Job Seeking & Social Contacts Diary
Give clients of Disability Employment Services, job seeker diaries and pens.
Encourage them to keep a record of their job seeking efforts and their social contacts and new connections they make in their career at meetings, to record names and notes about meetings, and any ideas about future or upcoming work. As well as recording social contact events attended in the community. 

These diaries can then become a useful record of efforts required to meet participation requirements and notes about jobs, skills required, and skills building the client may wish to complete.

3. Team Environment
Each week bring all of the Disability Employment Services clients together in the office for a team meeting and talk about their progress in their job search, discuss leads, advertisements seen, ideas, contacts, & people they talked to.
Require a report or contribution from each client as a voluntary activity.
Having team job search challenges would be a great way to also increase the motivation and participation of individuals.
Disability Employment Services could offer Rewards to individuals who help anyone in the team, gain employment.
Having job seeker team meetings where clients can share what they found out in the last week, with other job seekers, would help to boost client motivation, feelings of purpose and feelings of well-being which would help alot. 
A clients random idea shared at a team meeting may help another client at the meeting to gain employment.
Clients could be encouraged to work together to find employment opportunities which would also help their motivation and with overall feelings of success. 

Having job seeker team meetings would help meet the psychological need for social connection by clients of disability employment services rather than perpetuating the feeling of social disconnection caused by unemployment. 

4. Disability Employment Services Providers to address disability discrimination.
Disability Employment service providers should be used as a disability discrimination Watchdog.
To pinpoint times when discrimination is occuring during recruitment.
Pinpointing disability discrimination during recruitment should be a role of disability employment services.
This should be a fundamental function of disability employment services.
Recruitment and HR is the first barrier to employment for people with disabilities in getting work and creating career success.
Disability employment service providers should help people with disabilities identify discrimination events encountered during their job search and take action where appropriate including suggesting how reasonable adjustments could be made.
To do this, they will need to have job search review appointments to discuss possible discrimination instances. 
Job search review appointments could incorporate a second contact with the employer the client recently applied for a job with, as a follow up point.
It is a situation that people with disabilities are usually screened out of the recruitment process too early for these processes to even be fair. 

Disability employment services flagging disability as a barrier to employment have an ethical obligation to be a Disability Discrimination Watchdog.
And to take action, making disability discrimination reports and complaints to the Human Rights Commission. 

Disability employment services providers should be able to facilitate discussions with employers to arrange to provide reasonable adjustments to the client during the recruitment process , pre-empting possible discrimination events, and giving the person with the disability a better chance of getting the job rather than having no chance at all.
By asking clients using disability employment services to request adjustments from potential employers before making an application for work, they can force employers to be extremely transparent in their recruitment process and thereby pinpoint disability discrimination. 

5. Disability Employment Services Providers to advocate for employment opportunities.
Rather than having clients waste all their time meaninglessly applying for jobs they will never get, the disability employment services providers should act as a recruitment agency themselves and find suitable employment vacancies for clients.
If they have an advocacy role once a client gains employment, it should also be a role in the recruitment phase.
Disability employment services providers should be active advocates for people with disabilities and take regular steps to assist clients in their contact with potential employers.
This role could be completed on a regular, rather than infrequent basis being a part of the job search plan in a joint effort between the Disability Services consultant and the client. 

6. Disability employment services providers should assess client Skills; for work, including skills writing resumes, contact letters, selection criteria and completing interviews.
An actual skills assessment should occur, not just an assessment of the disabilities of the client.
Knowing the actual professional skill sets of clients would help disability employment service providers and their clients identify, secure and gain, suitable employment opportunities.
Skills gaps would also be more easily identified and plans of improvement more easily determined. 
By doing detailed skills assessments of disability employment clients, disability employment service providers could help prevent time wasting on useless job applications that will never result in employment. 

It is inhumane to constantly blame clients or presume they are dole cheats, and not make changes to the services. 

7. Working With Clients
Disability employment services are not helping people with disability gain suitable employment by failing to address the problems with their services. A core problem appears to be the lack of cooperation between service professionals and their clients.
There is infrequent communication events and contact opportunities.
Meeting only once every 2 weeks just to monitor application compliance and nothing else is not helpful. 
This could be addressed by having job seeker team meetings each week, and having a job seekers noticeboard in the job network members office.
Since work skills assessments are not being completed, this should be added, then writing related skills development plans, and a returning to work plan with a realistic goal.
Working along side clients should be a service promise, so as to reach an actual agreed to work goal, and to monitor job searching and applications, and assess and address potential discrimination occurring in the recruitment process.
A job search plan is not sufficient when you examine its details.
There are no timeframes in job search plans and they rarely list specific preparing for work activities or tasks to complete.

8. Motivational Counselling.
One on one and group motivational counselling events should be offered.
This could be made into a feature of disability employment services  offered in the job seeker team meeting setting.
Part of the motivational program might be completing money mindset exercises and to help with money management and budget issues and to share tips within the team.
The motivation component could include vision boarding,  holiday vision boarding,  holiday planning and large purchase planning. 

Disability employment services need to actively help through motivational counselling, where needed, to help curb negative thinking and pessimism, caused by long-term rejection for employment. 

People with disabilities already have a hard enough life coping with a life of disability so all help towards having a positive mindset while facing rejection for employment and long term unemployment is needed. 

9. Prepare for Work training events & referrals
Disability Employment Services could actively help people with disabilities in  their job search, by developing and improving their presentation and appearance style. 

This might include sending clients to fashion stylists, deportment courses, makeup application training, skincare courses and workplace and personal hygiene training and to hairstylists. Or providing funding for these. 

Rather than saying "we can get you suitable work clothes if you get the job" offer training or advice or tips on "how to maintain a suitable work wardrobe" and "how to maintain personal appearance",  as part of the disability services program. 

Disability Employment Services should be connected to deportment and public speaking and communication training in the community and making referrals to these. 

In essence clients should be treated holistically considering all of the aspects of their disadvantage situation and making actual attempts to address these within the job search plan. 

By addressing the disabling factors, each client experiences, each client should be able to sit with their provider to discuss and plan a long-term trajectory into paid employment over the next 6 to 12 months. 

In this plan, all factors impacting their disadvantage and/ or disability would be addressed, itemising specific job application targets, skills building activities, social connection building targets, personal development and health improvement targets.

Summary: 

An Overhaul of the Disability Employment Services Sector, is desperately required, and it needs to include: 

• changing to a holistic approach to helping clients, that creates;  
        improvements to their work skills sets, 
        improvements to their social circumstances and social connections,
        a person specific detailed plan listing specific tasks,
        a long term plan to gain paid employment,
        several options to achieve the paid employment goal,
        plan review dates. 
•  actual assessments of the skills and capabilities of the clients to help  target their job search to suitable employment, (change the program focus to abilities & skills rather than disability) 
• regular advocacy approaching employers and
   promoting the talents of clients to prospective employers
   then asking for reasonable adjustments in the selection phase
• disability discrimination watchdog role
• assessment of the social circumstances of each client with a plan & steps to improve this specified (change the role of DES to focus on building social capacity including providing team based services as well as individual plans that improve social connection)
• motivational counselling component individually & in a team setting         job search team meetings with the client group, rewards based information sharing in the team, (reward clients for sharing job leads to others) assign job search buddy challenges, where suitable, encourage team skills building, joining team sports, joining community groups, volunteering, fund raising
• provide increased referrals to job ready training or services; appearance: clothing, maintaining work wardrobe, hygeine, hairstyles,    skincare, make-up
• community groups to improve social confidence, speaking groups, volunteering, sports