the right support for the right people

Last week I was watching part of the Labour Party Conference and Ed Miliband was taking part in a question and answer session with delegates. I tuned in when I  think he had just been asked a question about employing disabled people- ( I didn't see the question) because his answer covered Remploy workers  and Employment and Support Allowance.

He said  disabled people who can work should be given the right support to be able to do so. This can be very complected as disability is different for every disabled person.

Using my experience as a disabled person I would like to offer 2 ways in which the government can help young disabled professionals like my myself support into employment..

Firstly for young disabled graduates a national employment scheme should be established to  support disabled people into  mainstream employment. in 2008 I secured a job at Lehman Brothers in September 2008 through such a scheme run by the disability charity SCOPE.The SCOPE scheme worked by me being employed by SCOPE for a year to work at Lehman Brothers, then at the end of the years employment it was up to the bank if they took me on permanently and I know the BBC have such schemes so why cant it be rolled out nationally?


Secondly disabled people need help to move house quickly.how this is done I do not know as there is a chronic shortage of of accessible homes.

I live in social housing in Edinburgh and had to turn down a job in London because I couldnt find accessible housing despite months of trying and was told the best way of moving was to secure a house swap but I couldn't find one.  the problem here is that disabled people cant job hunt unless they have accessible accommodation because they cant  take a job in London but live in Edinburgh like me then face the issue of finding a place to live which could take months.

So Ed Miliband is right when he says disabled people need the right support to gain employment and I hope I have offered some thoughts how that support might look

how the UK Government can raise a glass to disabled people in Britain

A year ago I was lucky enough to take part in the Paralympic Torch Relay. In my hand I held the Paralympic flame, it was meant to symbolise a change of attitudes in the United Kingdom, towards disability. Disability was meant to be tackled by society as a whole and not just by disabled people.

Despite this hope, many disabled people are despairing about the changes to disability benefits and feel that instead of being inclusive society is marginalising them through the use of language such as “scrounger”. For some disabled people politicians are not to be trusted because instead of helping to improve disability rights through welfare reform, those rights are being taken away.

That trust can be rebuilt by seeing disability as a positive thing. Today in the House Of Commons there will be an Opposition Day Debate on the impact of the government policies on disabled people. Some MPs will use examples of their constituents to show how government policies are hurting instead of helping disabled people and I'm sure I will find this debate very depressing.

So how can the UK government cheer me up? The answer is take me for a beer or at least give me access information in England and Wales about where I can get one. In Scotland I campaigned for and got a change in the law so that all new licensing applications have to say what access for disabled people their facilities have. This change was supported by all parties in the Scottish Parliament and the licensed trade. Such a move by the UK government has the potential to not just help the disabled people, but people with young families or limited mobility and help the licensed trade. The whole point of the legislation was  to improve access information not to say all pubs have to be accessible. 

Toby Perkins the Shadow Pub Minister through a written question asked if the   UK government have any plans to introduce similar legislation and the answer is no see here . I hope they change their mind and if they do I may just buy them a drink

someone new in my life

For the past eighteen months or so I have been sharing my life with a figure, who at first was on the fringes, but now are front and centre sharing my life on a daily basis. I would like to introduce you to “the Gloom”. Who or what is the “the gloom”? I hear you ask yourselves. “the Gloom” is my name for depression. I was diagnosed with it in March this  year.

My depression aka “the gloom” is on the mild end of the spectrum. I am finding it hard to have a constant mood. I am a yoyo, up some days, down the next. This feeling is not constant it goes and then comes back. It brings not a feeling of sadness but a feeling of pointlessness, I find myself wondering what I should do today because there are not job vacancies and after unsuccessful job interviews, I think, what did I do wrong?

“the Gloom” is in my life for two reasons. Firstly, on the surface I am depressed because I can’t find work, and spend my days looking for work and dream of being a campaign supremo and speech writer. The second reason is probably the underlying reason, I am just coming to terms with my disability. You may find that an odd thing for me to say because I have been disabled all my life.

I am struggling with this because I was brought up to believe my disability was not a barrier to my life However, I have discovered that it is and that realization has hit me hard, Yes my disability has led me to change the law and climb Ben Nevis. But it stopped me from moving to London to take a job with ITV that I would have loved. It is limiting my job prospects because I have to think about my home first and not the job, so it is stopping me from fulfilling my potential.

But “the Gloom” has made me realise what I want to do with my life and that is to make a difference to people. By managing “the Gloom” I know I can make a difference to someone’s life, my own.

CV of a public affairs professional

If you know of anyone needing  someone with media,policy and campaigns experience show them this CV its rather good its mine

Mark Cooper

 markcooperma@googlemail.com

Personal Profile

An award-winning, highly motivated individual with strong communication skills gained through various operational and strategic roles. I have a strong working knowledge of Scottish and British public affairs through experience in an MPs office and through working for one of Scotland’s leading third sector organisations.

I have significant campaigning and lobbying experience both as a campaign leader, as a member of a campaign team and as a candidate in the 2010 General Election. My work has been recognised by the Public Affairs industry. The successful Barred! Campaign – which I founded and ran – won the 2010 Devolved Campaign of the Year at the Public Affairs News Awards.

Education

Aberdeen University (2003-2007)MA (Hons) Politics and International Relations (Lower Second Class)

• Modules included: Scottish Politics, British and European Politics, and Research Methods in Social Science.

Boroughmuir High School (1997-2003)

• Highers: Modern Studies, History, Psychology
• 6 Standard Grades at Credit Level: English, Physics, Computing Studies, German, History, Modern Studies
• 1 Standard Grade at General Level: Maths

Employment

Scottish Labour
Campaign Volunteer (March 2011-May 2011; February 2012-May 2012)

• Data gathering and inputting which enabled voters to be targeted
• Collected voter data on a door-to-door basis helping enable Labour vote to be targeted
• General administrative tasks

Capability Scotland
Parliamentary and Policy Officer (October 2009 – October 2010)

• Promoted the involvement of disabled people in policy and campaign work by collating their views into organisational responses to Government consultations
• Heavily involved in external stakeholder relations with other disability organisations, national media, and civil servants, central and local government and by representing Capability on the Cross Parliamentary Group on Disability.
• Lobbying with the Senior Policy Advisor to exert influence to ensure that laws are passed to improve the rights of disabled people and to help change societal attitudes.
• High-level writing and drafting skills included writing parliamentary briefings, consultation responses, and newspaper articles.
• Conducted research on disability equality, which led to the production of reports, which were used to campaign on issues and inform press releases.

Capability Scotland
Scotland Policy Officer (July 2009 - October 2009)

• Headhunted by Capability Scotland as a result of the Barred! Campaign.
• Led a campaign for equal accessibility for disabled people in bars across Edinburgh whilst raising awareness across Scotland. This campaign resulted in legislative change.
• Liaised with Scottish Parliament and government officials.
• Promoted the work Capability Scotland across a range of media giving interviews, and writing articles, for numerous trade magazines and national media.
• Developed Capability Scotland’s social media strategy understanding the importance of social media in engaging with communities.

Lehman Brothers
Data Analyst (September 2008)

• Hired by the bank but bank collapsed before start date.

Nigel Griffiths MP Office

Officer volunteer (June 2005 – September 2008)

• Worked for Nigel Griffiths during university holidays and on a more regular basis throughout 2007 and 2008)
• Supported MPs’ workload through research, general administration work, and constituent responses.

Achievements

• Founded and ran the award-winning Barred! Campaign. This work was recognised by the Public Affairs News Awards and successfully amended legislation. The campaign also gained national recognition through Capability and other charities.
• Prospective parliamentary candidate in Orkney and Shetland at the 2010 General Election for Scottish Labour. This unique role helped hone my project management and media relation’s skills.
• Was a member of the Debating Society at Aberdeen University and represented the University at competitions across Scotland
• Competent with all Microsoft applications, e-mail and all social media platforms.

References

Available on Request

love is all around

Today is one of those days in parliament when you feel something momentous is being decided, just like  the debate on tuition fees and the Iraq war vote. The issue is today is can same sex couples be married.

I can see both sides of the argument, but I want to explain my point of view. I have spent months thinking about it. I am a practising christian although I don't go to church that often I have found my faith is getting stronger as I continue to fight to find a job it is a comfort to me.

I am in favour of  same sex marriage  and i will admit it i struggled with it because many Christians who i respect said in the press it was wrong. I came to my decision on Christmas eve  during the midnight service. the minister said we have to "put the Christmas story into our lives today into our schools and our work places" the minister who said that is my father.

In my view the Christmas story is about love, The Christmas story says that God gave Jesus to the world because he loved it. A wedding is the opportunity for two people to say to each other in public that they love each other and want to commit to each other in front of their friends.

The second way my faith has helped me to make this decision  is that the new testament talks about equality  how God loves everybody regardless of who they are. this commitment to equality is similar to my own as I really believe that people who would like to commit themselves to each other regardless of their sexuality should be able to do so.

Britain is an un equal society with rich, and poor but by passing the Marriage (same sex couples) bill  Parliament can take a step towards making Britain the equal society we all want it to be.

some thoughts on how I would start to change the work program

I took part in this weeks panorama which showed problems in the work program and I would like take the opportunity to share my ideas on how I would change the program as a whole. My thoughts are nothing to do with the provider who is supporting me to find employment and I will just on disability and employment because that is what I have experience of.

I think there are two main issues with the work program, the first is financial and the second is the actual business of supporting people into employment. Disabled people are seen to be harder to place into employment because they may need extra support to work, for example a person who is depressed may need confidence classes before they can enter the labour market. I have cerebral palsy and am quite prepared to move to find work. This is where I need help because if I do find a job elsewhere in the country I will need help to find accessible accommodation, I live in Edinburgh and found a job in London which I was offered and had to turn down because I couldn’t find accessible accommodation, As disabled people do take longer to support into employment it is right that firms are paid slightly more as they have to do more work to succeed. I found it amusing learning that as a disabled person I have “bounty” on my head.

A Criticism of the Work program is that providers are paid a lot of money. I would like to know did the Government do a cost analysis of doing the program through the job centre? I am asking because I would think the premium paid would be lower, because I would think the government would not want to make money in the same way as the private sector providers, so the overheads would be smaller because as well as costs such as staff profit is not an issue

To help people into work there has to be jobs for the providers and the clients to find to apply for. There can be as many people as you want to have on the work program but if there are not the jobs for them to move into they will be on the program for a long time. That is why the staff who work for the providers do not have the time to work with their clients as I said on the program last night because they have lots of clients but few jobs

Now I will move on to how I would change the program. Firstly I would put disabled people straight on to the work program instead of waiting a year of people claiming JSA before doing so, as happened to me. It maybe different for others.

I would do this because surely the barriers faced by the participants would be the same as on day 365 and if the support they require is to gain confidence the longer the time it is not dealt with the worse it shall be.

Secondly I would use the program as a chance to revolutionise the way employment for disabled people is view in this country. Successive governments have viewed it as providing supported employment through factories such as Employ, In my view supported employment in those environments is only part of the solution because disabled people go to university and college in greater number than they did but there is not a scheme to support them into employment.

I am a graduate and in 2007/2008 I was part of a scheme for disabled graduates run by the disability charity SCOPE which placed disabled graduates with firms and provided support to disabled people for 12 months and at the end of scheme it was up to the firm if they took on the disabled person at the end of that time. In September 2008 I was a placed at an investment bank but I never got my feet under the table as the bank was Lehman Brothers and I started on the day they went bust. I would like to see a similar scheme rolled out nationally. I would also like a scheme to make it easier for disabled people to move home. This is needed because jobs may not be availible for people where they live but it takes time to find suitable accessible accommodation and employers may not wait that long before rescinding the offer of employment

so there are a few ideas on how to improve the work program, I hope a decision maker will read it and give it some thought. But I most of all I hope I find a job so the bounty can be taken off my head.