Hi Guys Amreen here, following my recent conversation with Kelly (about an hour) I am absolutely over the moon that my former Service User at MAIN has won at Tribunal which means his Employment Support Allowance has been reinstated because of his autism disability. I cannot explain how surreal and overwhelmed I am feeling with this outcome. For those of you who may not know why this means so much to me I would like to give you some background as to why I have cried tears of happiness with this news. Firstly when this service user made a referral back in May, he had already submitted his form and been denied ESA because the service user didnt quite put enough emphasis on his autism well about two sentence to be precise as he felt like the greater need was his not so good knee. Initially I supported him to challenge this this on the grounds of his autism and the fact that he was unable to work at this current time due to the nature of his difficulties to find out we were rejected once again. Regardless of the GP letter, my supporting evidence for the difficulties he faced on a day to day basis. We challenged this further and appealed the final reconsideration and were told we would be given a date to go to appeal at a Tribunal. The service user currently had 0 points and we had to get him over 15. So this is where all the hardwork started because not only is it hard to get over the 15 mark but to do that from nothing was going to be difficult especially when the service user was still not wanting to talk about his autism. The plan was to help him understand his diagnosis and how it was impacting him (hard when he has recently received the diagnosis and never known any different and thinks his anxieties and difficulties are what everyone experiences. We did this by setting a fortnightly and in some case one hour meetings to help him counter argue everything the DWP had evidenced but was not the case. This meant working and breaking through all his routines and structures in order to and distinguish between that he does due to the nature of his condition and that which everyone does. This meant breaking everything down further, self evaluation from him which is so hard when he has put in so many self managing strategies but is not aware of this. Hand in hand with this I booked him into MAIN understanding your diagnosis workshops which allowed to him to better understand his condition. Along the way feeling anxious myself as I knew this outcome was going to impact where he lived as if it didnt go in his favour he would have had to move home, be forced to face social interactions and communication by going into DWP on a regular basis and having to work which he referred to as a social nightmare. At times questioning whether I should tell him to back down as seeing his anxieties, his meltdowns and the impact it was having on his mental health well being was so difficult but we put in strategies and managed this. Today I received the best ever leaving present from MAIN and that was this phonecall to tell me my final lasting outcome, I am proud to have worked for MAIN, I am proud to have followed their ethos, I am proud of this achievement, I am proud to have helped him manage his life, I am proud to have raised autism awareness, I am proud to have had his autism acknowledged. MAIN will now further support this service user to put in further strategies to manage his autism, they will create social opportunities and interactions so that he can face his social anxieties and challenges. Further to this I have had lots of people wish me well and ask how I am managing at my new job. Guys I I cannot believe its nearly been a week tomorrow and I settling into my new job really well, I have fitted in so well, staff are so welcoming and I have started to work on the ASC provision. It was hard to leave MAIN but I know I made the right decision as I have so much experiences and skills to offer at my new place and it was a great opportunity. I am ready to continue raising awareness and help more young people meet their outcomes. Regards Amreen
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 21:38:21 +0000
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