Working Links

Pre-empting getting a medical and being passed as fit for work I contacted the DEA via email [the wonders of the internet] to find out what options there could be for me

This is the help I can look forward to:

Hello Brainblogger

There is a new programme which started on 28/04/08 called pathways, the sole provider of this programme which has effectively replaced new deal for disabled people are Working Links.

Hopefully this 3 year contract will be more radical in its attempts to help individuals who wish to move off incapacity benefits and back into paid employment.

I think it is unlikely that you will end up on Jobseeker’s Allowance or in some low paid employment, the aim is to make you better off in work financially, not worse off, as this is counter-productive.

Your health condition is still treated as a disability under the DDA.

Thanks

DEA



To me it basically looks like the jobcentre ain't bothered and would rather just farm me off to Working Links. I have not read good things about working links. It does not fill me with confidence.

Shall I go to working links in town and see what they have to say making sure I do not sign my life away and report back on my blog?. What do you think fellow bloggers?

How reassuring it is to know that my health condition is covered by the DDA,

My Philosophy is that the government don't give a monkeys what I want in terms of a career and as long as they get me off the Incapacity Benefit books and start collecting the savings.

Since my head injury I have not had a full-time job and my cv only has periods where I did therapeutic work [now permitted work], does therapeutic work count, part-time work filing catalogues and then the rest is voluntary work and then littered with gaps where I have been in hospital and done rehabilitation etc. I am sure my CV will be appealing to any future employer even though I did get help to do a groovy new CV.

When I left hospital all I did was go back to the Neuropsychologist every few weeks and then months and then three months etc, with numerous visits to the GP to get super headache tablets. you can see where this going.

I did try and go to back to my job again at the carpet distributor [this was one of my 3 jobs before the accident], critics of people on IB please note: I wanted to go back to work even though I only been out of hospital a few weeks and it was blatantly obvious to everyone except me that I wasn't well enough to go to work

I think at work the people in the office were all very nice to my face but I think they saw the mess I was in and it was all going to end in tears and trying to work wasn't going to last much longer. This was due to the fact I could not remember things , one side of my face was paralysed, [try eating roast dinner when one side of your face is paralysed] speaking was also a problem as I could not think of the words and I would get really frustrated. This is all typical effects of a brain injury. If I was an animal they would have put me down.

One morning I received a letter through the post & a P45 from the M.D after being on sick pay for a while basically giving me the boot suggesting I should get an alternative source of income from the government. No we wish you get well soon or anything, the heartless bastards [excuse my language]. I am not embarrassed to say but I literally cried my eyes out for hours.

I suddenly found I had a lot of time on my hands. I remember going to a special needs centre in town but there was no Jeremy Kyle then it was Kilroy

This is when I first met Incapacity Benefit but it wasn't called IB then I think it was called Sickness Benefit or something like that.

Where did it all go wrong?. If there had been proper support to start off with I would not have ended up in this situation.

Radical attempts to get people back to work, we have heard all about the radical attempts to get people back to work.

Did there not used to be a green card system many moons ago and employers had to have a quota of green card workers? I don't know where that came from but that's been in my brain swimming around.

How am I going to be better off in work financially when I do not have the capacity to work full-time?. This is where people like me feel anxious about finding work and plunging into the labour market.

I still feel trapped and I still have a IB50 to fill in. 23 days still to go