New goal to get people with learning disabilities into work

Catherine, you may like to read the current Code of Practice for Employment and Occupation issued by the Disability Rights Commission (now the Equality and Human Rights Commission). This was revised in 2004, to deal in much more detail with accomodating people with learning disabilities in work. See:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/drc_employment_code.pdf

Are you sure Catherine ? I note the .gov in your contact and for many socio-economically disabled captives sort of excluded from the inclusive main stream secondary education provision due to their functional illiteracy the aversion therapy has left them a little twitter and bisted with a life-long problem with authorities and tick-box 'all talk', do nothing do gooders ?

Are you sure you are really ready to be truly non-judgmental and tolerant of those who's experience of the system has been inconsistancy, intolerance, inequity and particularly "infidelity" as they have been shuffled from one agency to another with a new teacher, carer or case workers etc. every other week ?

A high percentage of the self-aware mentally disabled will have the capacity to self-modify the more extreme of their defencive even aggressive anti-social self-protective behaviours if included and 'enabled to participate' in work/life yet will from time to time, if feeling insecure, "kick-off" just to see if the 'positive regard' they appear to be held in is genuine or just tokenistic.

No one likes to be talked down to, put down or patronised by the sort of super non-agressive counselling idiot sweet talk - 'now then, hoow are you feeling today ?' is likely to get a bunch of fives or an 'F' off you stupid b....'.

If you are not ready for that sort of honesty best not to go there as it will break your heart and they will just be let down again by another well intentioned do gooder. Of course you maybe an ex-teacher or worked in youth offending and then you will at least be used to being called all the names under the sun everyday - can be exhausting and most don't last longer than six years.

On the other hand low functioning disabled are usually affectionate but will tend to take things literally so you will have to be very, very careful with instructions although they probably will come with a carer to ensure their safety.

Which brings me to "Risk Assessment" as each one will require an individualised risk assessment to ensure they and others understand limitations and/or boundries within which they may perform well.

East Midlands or South Humberside has a shed load of organisations from national charities to local social enterprises and there should be a pathways or similarly titled coordinator to aid cross agency contacts.

Good luck but watch out for the inter agency funding polotics - nuff said.

Nearly forgot Jo, sorry. New Forest is covered by www.shaw-trust.org.uk who are currently running employability contract for Jobcentre Plus so may be worth a first contact and, of cource, www.enham.org.uk are also local Hampshire org based near Andover @ the village of Enham Alemein.

HI Nigel

That would be great thanks. My email address is Catherine.oconnor2@sheffield.gov.uk
Please drop me a line with your contact details and I will respond direct.

Any others with any ideas please do cotnact me also.

I want to ensure our practices etc are as widely accessible as possible, therefore from dyslexia to more complex learning disability that may require a carer being present.

Look forward to your replies....

Thanks

I work at the Fortune Centre of Riding Therapy in New Forest. we work with studnets funded at present by LSC who have learning difficulties and discabilities Are we eligible and if so how do we submit a proposal to become a Project Search site?

Mee, provocative ? No never did, yes but, no but, you no in it wha-eveeer.

Naa, jus a simple'sss observation, over a significant number of years, that those functionally impaired by a systemically failed system at school who were once nevertheless able to sustain an independent self-sufficient vocational career, even if academically challenged, now require the one skill they have been deprived of "functional literacy" in our increasingly and insidiously text driven technologically dependent age.

Add in a little stress into the mixer exacerbated by a little sort of "approval deprivation" of those who do not immediately achieve a reading rate in excess of 180 words per minute who will naturally start to feel a little 'performance anxiety' when confronted by text and you either have a spur to drive them onto greater things regardless or a crushed spirit and a life-long self-fulfilling prophesy of socio-economic underachievement.

Whether obviously disabled or not we are all somewhere on the spectrum of capacity or "functionaltiy" from super hero to zero in terms of fame and fortune yet the ease and fluency with which we "access text" remains the one basic skill that underpins even defines the majority of us in an increasingly 'hour-glass' economy of haves and have-nots.

Luckily we are in a period of transition from recognising or charactorising dyslexics, autistics and others labelled SEN as a problem or solely having a reading difficulty to appreciating that a significant number of those who manifest or present with a range of perceived debilitating symptoms are potentially gifted in other ways and just captive in a communication trap.

David & Phil, like many, appreciate the effort required to cope and will have developed a range of strategies to overcome issues with 'access to text' that I would like to bet will be solely related to 'visual stressors' associated with childhood coordination or synchronisation of binocular vision !

The probability, as with 68% of those charactorised as Dyslexic, is that the visual system whether 20/20 vision, or not, will not have developed the nack and therefore stamina over time to maintain convergence required to sustain close work ( serial, sequential search in the case of small symbals) which will result in various visual coping strategies presenting as a squint, lazy eye, eye turns etc. that are usually treated up to the age of 8 by 'patching' the good or dominant eye or prismatic glasses to reduce double vision.

As for Catherine: you could start "in-house" as statistically 58% of DSE users (HSE RR561) will report a degree of Screen Fatigue or CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome) that will also increase risk of MSD's four fold due to the fatigue impairing their ability to sustain the correct ergonomic posture over time.

Apart from that you may like to contact the ' shaw-trust.org.uk ', ' enham.org.uk ' and of course the British Legion

If you wanna know more regarding Screen Fatigue and simple mitigative interventions do contact me.

I am currently working with a team of colleagues to try and increase the number of staff with learning difficulties/ disabilities. I would love to hear from anyone who has any ideas or experiences that may help contribute to this project. (either as employee or employer or provider etc etc). I'd love to hear from you.......

Yep...look at Nigels other posts...he promotes discussion by being provocative...the Clarkson of the forum.... :-)

I'm wondering if Nigel just plyas devils advocate...either that or he has a disability himself, no social concious...and forgive me is my spelling is incorrect, like david I went through an appreticeship, two degrees and chartership not nowing I was actually working twice as hard to acheive the same goals as everyone else...without blaming it on a political party!!!

I am Dyslexic and have worked in the property industry for the past 14 years. Prior to that I attended one of Englands large Catholic Public Schools where, my dyslexia was not discovered during the 10 years I attended. Only now I have started to try to deal with the core problems of Dyslexia by doing the DORE course, usually done by 8 year olds, (I am in my 30's).

I have two children of my own, who I am praying will not inherit this Disability, but anything that can help a child discover this frustating and demorolising condition, it has to be done.

The smallest problem with learning can have a 'domino effect' on the rest of your life. My issues have been amounst others not being able to spell and found it embarrassing when other people pulled me up on this, so I would therefore restrict my work to what was in my comfort zone! ie no development!

It is vital that this gastley condition is picked up and money invested in helping people with it, beleive it or not I look just like you, sound just like you, can discuss things elequently just like you, play rugby a lot better than you, but I carry a disability which as limited my life to a great extent.

Feeling guilty ? Not even 10% of the number of jobs lost when this gov cut funding to existing employment providers many of whom have closed down as a result loosing all that experience and manufacturing infrastructure that had taken years to refine and develop to meet the needs of learning and/or disabled.

Why oh why have they got to scrap anything that works but they didn't think off just to reinvent the wheel once facilities and people are gone ?

Not even bothered to make the calculation surrounding percentage of 7 million functionally illiterate that 400 presents and that's without breaking down the range of learning and other distinct disabilities encompassed.

Are they working toward the public sector employing everyone socio-physically, psychologically and economically disadvantaged ????

Perhaps the £100 million saved by reducing prescription in education is being earmarked, @ around £2.5 million each, to guarantee the 400 target are employed so they can say how successful their Search Project has been.

Only now going to put £10 million into training teachers to recognise pupils with obvious functional literacy, reading difficulties or Dyslexia type learning problems which begs the question what has SEN money over the last 30 years been spent on especially as special needs school s have all but been closed down over last ten years as kids transfered to 'inclusive' main stream schools to save money ?

Mad Hatters Tea Party quango on LSD or what......................