Lived Experience Forum

[kenny66]

I did my work capacity test with head office centrelink in my town, for my DSP. I found out that officially, no people with a disability work there.

The assessor was a contractor from a private company which clammed up completely when I rang and asked if that company employed people with a MI or a disability generally. So I guess not.

I went to the volunteers organisation, who work with the disability employment providers in my town, for some work. They don't employ anyone with a disability either.

The local yacht club did employ a guy with a disability earlier this year but didn't replace him when he left. The boss there told me that managing this guy was a hard job which made him wary of doing it again.

Maybe there is a big issue in managing people with MI at work, but you think it would be possible to come up with some practical tools to help bosses to do it.

My neighbour across the road runs a very big hardware outfit in town. He is my friend but wont employ me, having schizophrenia. He is not being mean, he just thinks it would never work out. So it is tough getting work for us. Maybe not so much in the future I hope.