Want to support chronically ill and disabled people into work? Why not try listening to them.

Peter had been an HGV driver for over 20 years. One day, Peter had a seizure. And – bang – just like that, Peter was medically unfit to drive a lorry. Imagine the shock.

Like most people, Peter had financial commitments. There was no work he could get that paid anything like the same wages. The fact he’d paid his tax and paid his National Insurance all that time counted for nothing. He was skint.

His debts built up. The stress of money worries, the health worries – he still really didn’t understand why he’d had a seizure – all overwhelmed him. Peter went into a desperate spiral of mental ill health. He started drinking heavily. His relationship broke up.

Peter was referred to a mentoring course I funded as North of Tyne Mayor. He got one-to-one support from a counsellor. The first think they did was listen to him. Not fill in forms. Not assess him for ‘work capability’. Not tell him to buck his ideas up. Just listened to him, not as another client to be benignly steered to some work course, but as Peter. His worries. His regrets. How he saw his future. It gave him the head space to get his life back under control. We were patient. There was no deadline.

‘Disabled’ is not a one-size-fits-all category

I met him a year later, and I’ve changed his name for this article. His confidence was rebuilt. He retrained in logistics. He’s got a new job and is back on his feet. He’s in a new relationship, and has a little baby. There was nothing about the person I sat and had a cup of coffee with that made me think he was different from anyone else. He was warm, thoughtful, and a good communicator. When life dealt him a blow, he stumbled. When he was offered a hand, he got back on his feet.

I wonder if I hadn’t funded that course, whether Peter would now be another increment on the suicide statistics.

We must see people as people. There’s nothing ideological about saying we should not leave people behind.

By investing in Peter, he’s healthier, happier, in work, and paying taxes. It’s common sense to say that treating people with dignity produces better outcomes.

We did it by listening to people. I’ve always believed that if you want good education policy, you should listen to teachers. If you want good health policy, listen to doctors. If you want to know how to speed up buses, listen to bus drivers.

I did the same thing with our equalities assemblies. My remit was economic – how to grow the economy. I wasn’t in charge of running any public services. Still, we convened people from disabled groups, and listened to their actual problems. The real barriers they faced day-to-day. We improved the understanding of me and my team, that “disabled” is not a one-size-fits-all category.

Labour now: no logic, nor morality

All the talk of “savings” and “iron clad fiscal rules” is not just cruel, it’s illiterate. Seeing people as nothing more than economic work units assaults our common humanity and blinds us to common sense.

The Film I, Daniel Blake sums it up perfectly. A skilled worker, with much to contribute, is crunched by the system and driven to an early grave. It’s set in Newcastle, and Dave Johns who played Daniel Blake was kind enough to do a fundraising gig for my election campaign.

When that film came out, Labour MPs queued up to be seen with Ken Loach. When the Labour Party expelled him, they ran for cover.

These people are now preparing to decimate the little remaining support that chronically ill and disabled people have. I was famously blocked from re-standing for Labour after talking to Ken Loach about his films at a cultural event about films. Neither logic nor morality seems to influence Labour policy any more.

Treat people with dignity

Hannah is a young woman I met. We worked directly with the charities and campaigning groups to co-design the courses I funded.

The first thing Hannah told me was that she’s an autistic person. She did have a job, some years ago, but her line manager changed. Her new manager wasn’t sympathetic. In fact, she’d snapped at Hannah:

Why can’t you be more like everybody else?

Hannah lost her job there, and felt she would never be employed by anyone. Her confidence was rock bottom.

Most work courses tell people how to put together a CV, and then make people apply for jobs for 35 hours a week. As someone who has employed a lot of people, I can tell you it just wastes everyone’s time.

Employers don’t want to have to sift through applications where people are clearly not qualified. People looking for work can do without the constant rejection. Why make people jump through hoops just so angry people with no understanding of the subject can feel good that “lazy” people are getting punished. It’s straight out of a Dickens novel.

Instead, Hannah got one-to-one support. Her coach found out what she liked and what she was good at. He got to see Hannah as a person. They worked together, and thought about what would be Hannah’s ideal job. It turned out that Hannah has an aptitude for images. So they actively approached companies that manage automatic number plate recognition systems, and got Hannah a job. When the computer can’t recognise the image, she corrects it.

But it doesn’t end there. Her mentor still checks in on her. He got her employer to adjust the way they decide employee of the month so her work could be included. Hannah now has a permanent job, she’s earning decent money, paying tax, and feeling good about herself. I saw her again a few months later, and she’d won employee of the month.

Treating people with dignity is economic common sense.

Featured image via the Canary