Work: Employment and Day Activities for People With Intellectual Disabilities #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter W post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to discuss work and day activities for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

People with a mild intellectual disability and no additional problems can often work paid jobs that would otherwise be performed by typically-developing adolescents, such as filling shelves in a supermarket or being waiters in a restaurant. They may not be able to complete all duties required for these jobs, but in the Dutch system, if you can do a task that is part of a job and have minimal employee skills (such as coming on time, respecting authority, etc.), you are expected to join the mainstream workforce. I, thankfully, have not been judged to meet these criteria, but then again I’m lucky in that I’ve been on disability benefits since 2004. A few years back, I heard of a profoundly and multiply disabled woman at my day center who somehow was judged to meet the criteria. The work specialist had probably never seen her, as they said she could do simple manual labor, while she had severe spastic quadriplegia.

Alternatively, there are sheltered workshops for people who can work, but need to do things at a slower pace and need some more support than can be reasonably expected within the mainstream workforce. However, these workshops have been facing significant budget cuts.

When this, too, isn’t an option, you enter the world of day activities. Those still can be “work-like”. In fact, most day activities for more cognitively capable intellectually disabled people simulate a work environment. Some of these activities are truly meaningless, in that the staff will let clients fill the same boxes with a number of items repeatedly only to empty them again so that the client can fill them once more. I honestly have very strong opinions on this: if it’s truly what a person wants and there’s no way of making the activity actually meaningful, I’m fine with it. Otherwise, I don’t see why day activities need to be “work” and things like crafting or music can’t be day activities for more cognitively capable individuals.

For more severely disabled individuals, day activities are usually sensorially-based. This includes snoezelen®, which is being in a room where the sensory environment can be completely controlled to suit the individual’s needs. I actually love this, although only for about 30 minutes at a time.

Other activities include cooking and baking, with which the clients usually don’t really help (although some moderately disabled people can) but will experience the sensory stimuli associated with the process. For example, I used to attend a group for profoundly disabled individuals and, when we’d bake something with apples in it, the staff would massage the clients’ arms with an apple. Music, story time, and simple crafts are also common activities for this population.

I, personally, if I had to choose a day activities setting, would choose the one for more severely disabled people. I know I can’t really function in a group setting, which is why I’m stuck at the care home for now, but I honestly have zero interest in meaningless labor.

Profession or Identity? #Write28Days

Posted on by Astrid

Today I finally remembered to check out the #Write28Days Facebook group and jump back onto the challenge bandwagon. The prompt for today is “Profession”.

I immediately thought of all the career paths I had envisioned for myself as a teen. When I was sixteen, I was planning on becoming an English major in college, choosing to specialize in American studies and was sure I’d leave for the United States in my third year. I actually half-joked that I’d obviously find employment there and never come back to the Netherlands.

Now of course I never even made it to being an English major. I never made it to my third year in college either and haven’t been to the United States as of yet. I’ve never been employed, in fact.

For some time, I listed my old blog as my place of employment on Facebook. Now because I’m not keen on my family reading my blog, I no longer list it on my personal profile. I don’t have work listed on my FB profile at all.

Today, I was discussing my personal strengths profile, which the mental health agency is supposed to have on file for each client, with my community psychiatric nurse. It scared the crap out of me. In the plan, you’re supposed to write about your former abilities (before becoming mentally ill or whatever), your wishes and ambitions and your current abilities. I immediately thought big, thinking that since I used to go to university before my autistic burnout and lived with my husband before coming to the care facility, I should probably want to go back to these. My nurse said I can think small too. I later thought of the fact that I used to be stable on a much lower dose of daily medications and would really like to go back to a lower dose of my antipsychotic at least. That’s a valid ambition too. I don’t really need to find a profession.

In fact, I am also reminded of last week’s Hour of Power show, in which the preacher talks about one’s title vs. one’s testimony. In the Dutch show, Carola Schouten talked about her title as the minister of agriculture and vice-prime minister. She contrasts this with her identity in Christ. I love this and felt an interesting connection to her, even though with respect to profession, she is infinitely more successful than I am. With respect to identity though, we’re both children of God.

Job: What I’d Want to Do If I Were Employable #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day ten in the #AtoZChallenge. As with most difficult letters, I’ve had a theme word for today’s post in mind for a few days but wasn’t sure how to go about it. I am pretty tired already, so this will be a bit of a random ramble.

I am unemployable according to the Dutch social security administration. The guidelines for this were revised in 2015 and I was scared that I’d be deemed employable. After all, the guidelines say that someone who can do at least one task that is part of a job (so not a full job) and who has basic employee skills, is often employable. These skills that are part of a job, include for example doing the dishes. I thought I could do this until my husband informed me that I can’t. He also felt I didn’t have basic employee skills such as coming on time and accepting leadership. Apparently, the social security people agreed.

Until I had my major crisis at age 21, I thought I’d be perfectly employable and not just by the current standards. I was convinced I’d be able to have a regular, in fact high-level job. I studied linguistics and wanted to become a speech-language pathologist.

If I were to design my ideal job, I’d however be a type of social worker with some educational psychology involvement. I would be the person to find out what people in complex care situations really need and try to deliver that. Of course, with my poor social-communicative skills, I will never be a social worker. Educational psychology is also pretty much inaccessible a field to the blind because of its heavy reliance on statistics.

I think I’m pretty good though at coming up with creative solutions to problems at least when they are within my field of interest. I can be critical of my staff and often ask them why they do things a certain way. They are not always able or allowed to tell me, as I’m just a client. However, if I were a support worker, social worker or the like, I would not run into this.

Ever since I was old enough to be aware of my own unique situation within the care system at around age twelve, I’ve been wanting to be this kind of ed psych/social worker mix. I was convinced I could help prevent other people in similar situations to mine from falling through the cracks.

I tried to study applied psychology at college one year. With this one year behind me, I could’ve chosen a major such as social work or psychodiagnostics. I didn’t, after all, because my communication skills teacher told me I would be passed on the oral test if I didn’t continue in this field. This feels a little sad to me, but I still have the capacity to learn on my own terms. I will most likely never be employable, but I can still learn new things in this field.