Disability employment scheme: sudden exclusion, fish-slapped by Departments and their "systems"
People with autism have difficulty getting a job. The letter below describes the experience of one person and his carer on reaching a point just 2 years after leaving school.
This experience shows that the Commonwealth Government's Disability Employment Scheme (DES) is largely intractable. The Australian Bureau of Statistics describes its abysmal outcomes for people with autism/ASD (link here):
In 2012, the labour force participation rate for people with autism was 42%. This compares with 53% labour force participation rate for people with disabilities and 83% for people without disabilities.
The 41.2% of people with autism in the labour market in 2012 experienced 23% unemployment (there is improvement since 2009 when labour force participation was just 34% and unemployment was 41%).
Merry F#*king Xmas
My friend is the mother of a child who is deaf and also has autism. She has been forced on to Newstart. My friend already works five days a week but with limited hours. Luckily she works at her son’s school but must be on call to deal with any adverse behaviors that might happen. Last week, as an example, her son head-butted a glass pane door of his classroom because he could not get in. It smashed and he cut his face all over. Said my friend, “ He was damn lucky not to have cut his eyes or a major blood vessel. Bled like a stuck pig. Added 20 years and too many grey hairs to count.”
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At home she also has to deal with meltdowns. ...
My friend does not get carers payment from the Government because – “ I don’t provide constant care in the home because he goes to school” ...
AND to top this off, because she has been shafted to Newstart, she is expected to apply for ten jobs per week. This single mother who can be called from work at any time to care for her child, who has the sole care of a child who is both deaf and autistic, a child that has challenging behaviour at home and school that requires her constant vigilance, who also has the sole care of another child … This mother is expected to look for ten jobs per week! Why? Because the Government thinks she is a LEANER and somehow has the capacity to not only look for ten jobs a week but also work full time. As she so eloquently put it – “How f#*ked is that?”
NDIS funding model ‘fails autistic children’
Sarah Martin, Political Reporter
Jedd (3) with behaviour therapist Stephanie Miller at the AEIOU Foundation, Huntfield Heights Centre.Source: News Corp Australia
SEVERELY autistic children are receiving less funding in trials of the National Disability Insurance Scheme than they were under previous funding arrangements.
Early intervention service provider the AEIOU Foundation, which set up in South Australia to test its viability under trials of the new national disability funding model, says it cannot operate effectively under the scheme.
AEIOU chief executive Alan Smith said it was able to provide only five days a fortnight of intensive therapy under the NDIS, compared with 10 days where the scheme was not yet in effect, in Queensland.
Programs for the 0.1 per cent of children with autism disorder require about $45,000 for each child, but the NDIS has set a benchmark payment of $16,000.