I don't have Dyspraxia myself, but my sister does and she's the reason I'm here. We're both currently looking for work, and of course it's generally very difficult to find a job at the moment, but she's finding it particularly difficult. She doesn't have much experience and the only contact she has ever had back from a job application has been negative. Today she has been getting very upset because she received a rejection letter from an advert because experience was needed in something which the advert did not state experience was needed in.
The job centre has been worse than useless, as has this ridiculous new 'work programme' thing. She was briefly signed up with a disability advisor who managed to get her a work trial locally (which didn't lead anywhere, despite her working very well for them for two weeks) and then another job in a local care home which she felt pressured into quitting because of a very nasty manager who was constantly ordering her to do hours of extra work for free. After this, the disability officer lost interest, was rather rude about it all and then never contacted her again. As the officer himself was in a wheelchair, we expected him to be a little more sympathetic.
In any case she has no confidence at all at the moment, and though I try to help her with applications, encouragement etc. I'm struggling to think of anything else that I can do to make it better for her. She is particularly worried because we both have additional pressure to find work now that the government has started to take people's DLA away for little or no reason. As she is able to walk, talk etc. it's likely that under the current system hers will be stopped, and it's also possible though she has a different, worse condition, that our mother's might also be stopped. This means that we really both have to find something as soon as possible because our mother can't possibly work.
Obviously we are both trying very hard to do this, but neither of us has a degree and it seems that people require a degree now for even the smallest of jobs. If an advert states "a degree" without stating a specific subject, the degree itself is probably not needed to actually do the job, and frankly if I'd just sunk into a great black pit of debt to spend four + years studying and someone told me afterwards that I was most suited to general administration work for minimum wage, I'd be insulted. I'd have loved to go to university myself, and I'm sure my sister would have too, but the money just didn't work out and fees now are higher than ever.
Right now we're both kind of going around in circles and jumping through ridiculous government hoops with next to no 'official' support. Honestly at this point if I came face to face with either Cameron or Clegg, I think I'd punch them both as hard as I possibly could and I'm not normally a violent person. It's hard enough for me to deal with but I'm getting very worried about my sister's general health and stress levels. She doesn't seem to be handling it very well at all. I feel like I should be doing something to help, but I don't know what. Is anybody able to make any suggestions, please?
Thankyou.