Hazel may be getting a job.

She has been home since end of last year doing nothing. My dad says I cant keep her home staring at the wallpaper. Which was a little unfair as she does quite a lot (plays with Melee, spends time on the computer, rides her bike, reads etc) However I take his point. She is 18 and needs to have some purpose in life.

We live in a small rural community Lawrence - population 600. Lawrence is an 8 minute drive away. The next nearest place is Balclutha and it has about 5,000 people there but its a 40 minute drive and in the other direction is Dunedin City an hour away 300,000 people I suppose.

Hazel cant drive, and never will. She has very poor visual spacial awareness. We are talking about a young adult that bumps into people and things a lot, and is still very unreliable crossing roads. No way she could get behind the wheel of a car and so for her to go to 'work' or do anything I have to drive her.

Lawrence has one small main street, a handfull of shops and few prospects of employment. But there is one hope. There is a large modern childcare/daycare/preschool there. Two years ago when we moved here volunteers were donating time and effort to getting it built. It was a community project and I got involved and offered then painted all the giant kids murals on the walls. Got a thank you letter etc. All history.

Now I happen to be good friends with one of the women on the board of trustees (the body that run the place, hire staff etc) I also know quite well about 4 of the others. There is about 8 on the board. Ally is a girlfriend, then I know Peter the local cop, I am friends with his wife. Then Mellissa is the school netball coach and teacher and Breezsha used to be on her sports team, and Katherine was my kids swim teacher last year. Anyway I asked Ally intially about what she thought of the idea of Hazel doing some voluntary time down at the Centre. And she thought it a good idea as long as it didnt cost the centre. And to be honest money is not the issue. I would not want money to be the reason she is turned down.

Hazel is already in receipt of 'invalids benefit' worth about USD$125 a week. She gets that for the rest of her life. This pays board here, gives her pocket money and some savings.

Then I got to thinking that if she just volunteers she would have few rights as a worker. And be told to go if anyone took a dislike to her. If she was employed there would be an onis on the employer to put some effort into making it all work. So I contacted 'work bridge'. They are a govt funded organisation that assist disabled people into the workforce. Now the problem is that for Hazel to be employed properly, the ideal which gives her rights so she just cant be sacked for any reason, means that she has to be paid. And the NZ law says you can not underpay the disabled. They must be paid at least the minimum legal wage. Which is about USD$5 an hour. But the centre dont want it to cost.

However - workbridge have all these options and things they can do to help. They can give Hazel a 'job coach' who works along side her to help her understand what her job is and keep her on task until she gets it. Another option is a subsidy worth about $4 an hour. But she cant have both at the same time. They also stay in touch and liase and help iron out any employment issues to find solutions if problems crop up.

Next I phoned her school (that she left last year) and asked if the staff can put together and frank and detailed document about what she can and can not manage. And then armed with all this write a letter to the board formally proposing an idea. From this take the agent from workbridge to a meeting and let him do the liasing. But my idea is this.

1) Take Hazel on as an employee on trial for maybe 6 weeks
2) Pay her the minium wage for this period so she can have a job coach
3) At the end drop the coach and pick up the subsidy so it costs them about $1 an hour to have her there.

I have heard that they have had problems covering the lunch time period for staff to children ratios, releasing staff for lunch breaks. So I though have her helping from maybe 12 noon till 2 pm 3 days a week building up to 5 days a week.

Hazel has big deficiets that would not make her much use in 40% of circumstances as a worker. But she has some strengths and abilities that would make her about 60% as capable as an NT employee

So fingers crossed we get this chance. I know we will at least get to the interview stage talking to board members. I just hope that our proposal is good enough and that the guy from workbridge knows how to pull these things together.


Fingers crossed.

Did you hear? I got my dd a job this summer. It was only for 8 weeks but .... it paid. Plus... no complaints

(from them, not from her)

No I didnt hear keggy, I have been outa the loop for so long. But that is great news. I think back to the gloomy old days when all I saw ahead were shattered dreams and no hope. And now I realises that there is so much. It might not be in quite the form I assumed when she was born. But I even suspect that there may be relationships and semi independent living etc.

The light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be sunshine.

Your idea sounds great...all of her experience with her littlest sister should be a great benefit to her. Plus, she'll be around little children that will enjoy her as is, everyone needs that. Plus any adults without a bug up their butt will also enjoy her and who knows, maybe it'll lead to more too!

Mili

SM, if Hazel can read she could put away books in the library. One of the adult autistics enjoys a "job" like that of course at the beginning close supervision and after that the person was just close by.