How do you deliver employment to the disabled, the answer is it depends what the disability is.

You're quite right Shonga and it also depends on the persons desire to find meaningful employment. Eg: I have a friend who is legally blind in that she has just 10% vision. She has an interest in all things computer and at one time worked under a Government disability employment scheme as a help desk operator. It drove her mad and since she gets a pension for life, she decided to stay at home and create her own employment by developing web sites. She now makes a tidy living from her work, coupled with the blind pension which cannot be taken away no matter how much she earns and the fact that she's entitled to a health care card, she does ever so much better than your average factory worker. However, another friend suffered a mental breakdown some years ago. She's much better now and capable of doing meaningful work. She's also multi skilled, however she has more than one disadvantage. Not only is she labled by society as being "mentally unwell," she's also an alcoholic and obviously gay. Used to getting by on a pension for over ten years, she has no intention of ever working again. Much easier to get the pension, access to food vouchers, a health care card, rent assistance, then blow what's left on fags and grog. It's not only the type of disability at question here, but attitude as well.

Wildcat,
Of course you are correct, I have a friend who is in a wheelchair who works in a H.R. position. Myself I am mentally disabled with chronic major depression coupled with generalised anxiety disorder and several phobia's and will never work again, not by choice but by disability.

So it does depend on not only disability, but also attitude and/or capacity to work, I can't think of anyone who would be living on the disability pension by choice, or should I say surviving.

My situation came about from 21 years of workplace bullying and harassment.

Indeed, Wildcat. But might you briefly pause to wonder if your blind friend's interest in finding additional employment would have been as great if she stood to lose a secure income by doing so? The blind pension does strike me as ever so slightly unfair, in that similar support is not available to people with equally, or more devastating disabilities - a quadriplegic who started a home business would be subject to an income/assets test.

I don't suggest dispensing with the blind pension, but expanding its provisions to cover those equally disabled and equally unlikely to recover. And as to your alcoholic gay friend - isn't it in the nature of constant intoxication to sap the motivation to work? And, if she presents, as I assume she does, as a diesel dyke, isn't it possible she might have noticed her clear sexual orientation was a barrier to employment, despaired of ever getting a job, and be putting a brave face on it?

Miles, Wildcat, shoes.

Anomie, you're right in suggesting my blind friend wouldn't have given up the pension under any circumstance and I also agree that the right to a lifelong pension should be available to many others who have disabilities, but our mean and tricky PM is slowly erroding that possibility. My gay friend is not as, you described, a "diesel dyke" but pretty rough around the edges non the less, however, with a heart as big as an ox and she has helped me on both a spiritual and physical plane immensly over the past few years. As for miles/shoes, I spent over 40 years with the most horrifying unseen disability which led to suicidal depression, alcoholism and a self destructive lifestyle, yet never told a soul about it. Around 8 years ago, I finally took the bull by the horns and turned my life around. Today, even though I recently suffered the sudden loss of my partner, I can't believe I once contemplated thoughts of suicide and yet my hidden disability is still with me, albeit a little more obvious now. As I said, a lot has to do with attitude. My "hidden disability" means I'll probably go through the rest of my life alone in my remote location, but that's the price I pay for being happy. Don't worry Anomie, I've certainly walked the miles :-)
Shonga, I emphasize with your plight. There most certainly are people who because of debilitating mental illness will never work again and it sounds as though you may be one of them. All the best my friend. I love to read your interactive posts. Keep them coming!

We have to be careful that in terms of employment of the disabled we don't follow the path of entitlement.

The classic example is transport. In Sydney we have a low-tech approach for buses: some buses are suitable for wheelchair use through the use of extendable ramps and this seems to work after a fashion.

However, to use another illustration, New York, under the idea of equal opportunity decided that all its buses needed to have wheelchair access via lifts: admirable I am sure, but a study found that it was actually more cost effective to provide each and every person who needed this type of transport a personal vehicle capable of carrying a wheelchair and an on call driver. It was only the claim that disabled people had the right to travel on buses that torpedoed this, despite the economic advantages of the alternatives.

Where arrangements in the workplace can be made to enable people with disabilities to work in a productive way, contributing to society and to their own well being, then this is good, but when the costs outweigh the financial input able to be made by a person with a disability I have problems.

It would be nice for everyone to be able to feel good about what they do, but it isn't always going to happen. We should never 'make work' for anyone on the basis of self esteem.

Remember that most of us are 'disabled' in one way or another, but we often have talents and abilities that are still useful. At 50 I wear glasses and have arthritic knees. I cannot use a computer as fast as a 20 year old. But I have interpresonal skills that generally exceed many 20 year olds. My arthritis does not affect my work. I have a range of experience in staff training and developement that I and my employer consider useful. My skills outweight my 'disabilities'.

It is a matter of making sure that people with disabilities can use their abilities, without focussing on their 'disabilities, and by not defining people by by their disabilities.