‘I don’t think they trust the choices I will make.’ – Narrative analysis of choice and control for people with psychosocial disability within reform of the Australian Disability Employment Services program

Abstract

Title: 'I don't think they trust the choices I will make.' -Narrative analysis of choice and control for people with psychosocial disability within reform of the Australian Disability Employment Services program

Australia’s Disability Employment Services Program: Participant Perspectives on Factors Influencing Access to Work

“…However, we remain unconvinced this means job-seekers with disabilities assessed as having a greater capacity to gain and maintain work should be diverted away from the DES program towards the government’s mainstream employment program, as recommended by the DES Mid-term Review [ 35 ]. This proposed program change requires more analysis of how this may influence employment outcomes, with research demonstrating job-seekers with disabilities feel less well-supported within the mainstream employment program [ 24 , 46 ]. More broadly, the even more stringent mutual obligations placed on mainstream employment participants have been found to undermine the well-being and confidence of participants to actively engage in the program and labour market [ 29 , 39 ].…”

“…Australia’s Disability Employment Services (DES) program is the federal government’s specialised welfare program for people whose disability is assessed as their main barrier to employment. For-profit and not-for-profit businesses are contracted by the government to support and monitor people with disability in receipt of income support (and a smaller number of voluntary participants) to ‘actively’ promote their employability and participation in work [ 24 , 25 , 26 ].…”

‘I’m proud of how far I’ve come. I’m just ready to work’: mental health recovery narratives within the context of Australia’s Disability Employment Services

“…Across the qualitative cohort, participants also described the stress associated with the high turn-over of staff occurring within DES, particularly since the 2018 DES reforms. Staff turn-over disrupts relational continuity and forces participants to re-tell their story and restart the process of building trusting relationships with their workers [41,44]. This process can take time and be re-traumatising for participants with psychosocial disability who often have difficulty with trust due to past experiences of harm or distress, including sexual assault or coercive interventions [78].…”

“…DES sits within the broader welfare system and the majority of participants engage with DES as part of increasingly punitive mutual obligations to remain in receipt of income support. Indeed, it has been argued the punitive welfare-to-work measures that are increasingly seen within Australia's welfare system, not only make it difficult to support key recovery elements such as empowerment and choice and control, but can be harmful for people experiencing long-term unemployment and significant unaddressed barriers to work [41][42][43][44].…”

Choice and opportunity on the welfare care market: An experimental evaluation of decision‐making in a context of individual funding policy

“…In health and social care policies, quasi‐markets have been initiated for the delivery of welfare services (Baxter, Heavey, & Birks, 2020; Fotaki, 2011; Le Grand, 1991). Embedded in a broader evolution towards person‐centredness, increasing choice has been a major reform agenda in many domains including community and healthcare for older people (Rodrigues & Glendinning, 2015; Wilberforce et al, 2017) or in the context of employment programs (Devine, Dickinson, Brophy, Kavanagh, & Vaughan, 2019). Spurred by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and driven by the Independent Living Movement, disability policy has taken a major turn internationally towards user choice (Dickinson, 2017).…”