My girlfriend was over during the weekend and compared to other people that are in a committed relationship (at least from what I've gathered over time), we don't deal in a lot of "romantic" time as such. Quite often we both discuss laws, rulings and the entire political agenda more than anything. Yes, we play a videogame here or there, we have some fun together with other stuff, but quite often we end up debating stuff that's not necessarily light.
As some might know, my girlfriend is somewhat in the same boat as me. She's been diagnosed with Asperger's amongst other things, so it's fair to say she knows her part about daily issues and struggles as well. Only difference with her, she's been diagnosed earlier than me, she's been in special ed. It's fair to mention she's younger than me. By the time it really mattered for her, Asperger's was already the current option, opposed to a history of therapists during DSM 3 days with me.
At the moment she's on disability income and with that she's currently enrolling in a graphic design course on a school that's for disabled people. I asked her what she has to do and also how it's covered financially. She receives a living allowance, government pays her education, her books, her computer programs... pretty much no expense is spared. That's really awesome and I really hope she will get a degree of sorts and be successful with a job.
However, and this is the talk over dinner; statistics show that a lot more people are being diagnosed with anything. Basically everyone has something. Nationwide here, 1 in 100 has autism (compared to 1 in 88 in the US). But still, 1 in 100? and that's just autism. Add in the full spectrum of every other disability in the DSM and I think you got a big group that needs special attention. For relevance sake, I've taken a look at just the people that are disabled in some form in terms of employment: an "employment disability". That is roughly 14% of the population that is deemed to be able to work. Four-teen per-cent!
That number is climbing year after year after year. And because we've got disability laws as well as social security a lot of these people are actually not working and receiving benefits of sorts.
It doesn't take a genius that a country that"s screaming "we need to make cuts" for the past few years cannot sustain this. And if I look at the expenses that are being made to make sure disabled people get both schooled and accommodated I think it's fair to assume it's a problem.
I predict that in a few years, they'll cancel disability income put everyone on social security and be done with it. It's cheaper. I've already been told that if I need coaching and therapy while receiving social security I should shell out the money myself. The moment I ask if they can do math for me and tell me how I can afford this they'll brush it off with "that's not my job".
But I can see some truth in the claim they make. The government can't sustain that. The social security office told me "we've got a lot of people to get employed and our resources are running low". Their resources are still government funded. So national cutbacks hit this as well.
Obviously rising cost in coaching and education doesn't help it a lot for people to seek out and finance help themselves. For a rough idea; I contacted a career counselor that deals with people on disability. His wage (and that's with most of them around here) is about 25% of my monthly income an hour! And If anything, I'm sure I need more than an hour a month with this person. In high school I dealt with counselors for 5 hours a week and that didn't result in much. I'm not slamming this person for what he wants for a paycheck, ask all you want, but when government does not step in and leaves people to pay of it themselves, it turns into a detrimental thing and is in no way contributing to society. I mean here's a catch 22; if I'm that filthy rich so I can afford it, why would I need guidance to start with? I might have had been to private school, had top guidance already and maybe if I'm really wealthy I might not even need a job and I can smooch of my interest alone (or the interest dads company makes for instance)
I think there needs to be done something. Tacking on expenses all the time is not helping and surely it won't be sustainable.
In order to sustain this, I think awareness of disability in employment would help a lot more. Train supervisors and the like in people management and add an extra chapter on disabilities. If I were to ask a supervisor what he knows about say Asperger's, which I think, if 1 in 100 has it, it's not that rare, is retorted by "never heard of that", no wonder people that, for instance aspies, have a hard time functioning in "regular" employment.
This kind of awareness would help a lot more (aside from having a degree and fitting education) in the long run. Throwing money at it and hoping it works seems a short term option and surely isn't the way to go when countries are screaming cutbacks.
As some might know, my girlfriend is somewhat in the same boat as me. She's been diagnosed with Asperger's amongst other things, so it's fair to say she knows her part about daily issues and struggles as well. Only difference with her, she's been diagnosed earlier than me, she's been in special ed. It's fair to mention she's younger than me. By the time it really mattered for her, Asperger's was already the current option, opposed to a history of therapists during DSM 3 days with me.
At the moment she's on disability income and with that she's currently enrolling in a graphic design course on a school that's for disabled people. I asked her what she has to do and also how it's covered financially. She receives a living allowance, government pays her education, her books, her computer programs... pretty much no expense is spared. That's really awesome and I really hope she will get a degree of sorts and be successful with a job.
However, and this is the talk over dinner; statistics show that a lot more people are being diagnosed with anything. Basically everyone has something. Nationwide here, 1 in 100 has autism (compared to 1 in 88 in the US). But still, 1 in 100? and that's just autism. Add in the full spectrum of every other disability in the DSM and I think you got a big group that needs special attention. For relevance sake, I've taken a look at just the people that are disabled in some form in terms of employment: an "employment disability". That is roughly 14% of the population that is deemed to be able to work. Four-teen per-cent!
That number is climbing year after year after year. And because we've got disability laws as well as social security a lot of these people are actually not working and receiving benefits of sorts.
It doesn't take a genius that a country that"s screaming "we need to make cuts" for the past few years cannot sustain this. And if I look at the expenses that are being made to make sure disabled people get both schooled and accommodated I think it's fair to assume it's a problem.
I predict that in a few years, they'll cancel disability income put everyone on social security and be done with it. It's cheaper. I've already been told that if I need coaching and therapy while receiving social security I should shell out the money myself. The moment I ask if they can do math for me and tell me how I can afford this they'll brush it off with "that's not my job".
But I can see some truth in the claim they make. The government can't sustain that. The social security office told me "we've got a lot of people to get employed and our resources are running low". Their resources are still government funded. So national cutbacks hit this as well.
Obviously rising cost in coaching and education doesn't help it a lot for people to seek out and finance help themselves. For a rough idea; I contacted a career counselor that deals with people on disability. His wage (and that's with most of them around here) is about 25% of my monthly income an hour! And If anything, I'm sure I need more than an hour a month with this person. In high school I dealt with counselors for 5 hours a week and that didn't result in much. I'm not slamming this person for what he wants for a paycheck, ask all you want, but when government does not step in and leaves people to pay of it themselves, it turns into a detrimental thing and is in no way contributing to society. I mean here's a catch 22; if I'm that filthy rich so I can afford it, why would I need guidance to start with? I might have had been to private school, had top guidance already and maybe if I'm really wealthy I might not even need a job and I can smooch of my interest alone (or the interest dads company makes for instance)
I think there needs to be done something. Tacking on expenses all the time is not helping and surely it won't be sustainable.
In order to sustain this, I think awareness of disability in employment would help a lot more. Train supervisors and the like in people management and add an extra chapter on disabilities. If I were to ask a supervisor what he knows about say Asperger's, which I think, if 1 in 100 has it, it's not that rare, is retorted by "never heard of that", no wonder people that, for instance aspies, have a hard time functioning in "regular" employment.
This kind of awareness would help a lot more (aside from having a degree and fitting education) in the long run. Throwing money at it and hoping it works seems a short term option and surely isn't the way to go when countries are screaming cutbacks.
