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♪ Background music playing ♪
#My name is Helen Clark and I manage the
Uniform Shop and That Party Place.
#Eleisha Heather Thompson. My nickname is Heather. I love
writing songs and stories. I've been looking for work
over and over and over and found this place and I'm like "Yay."
#I was introduced to Eleisha as a prospective job seeker
and we spent time working together finding
her strengths, weaknesses and where we could find
a place for her, her to work, what environment
would suit her. Eleisha spoke about how she wanted
to be located close to home, in a friendly,
non-pressurised environment. So we spent some time
building her resume, working through her
employment pathway plan which gives her a set of goals,
to working towards to find sort of ongoing work,
and she noted that this was a, a place - she thought that
this was the kind of place she'd like to work.
So she made the phone call and spoke to Helen and I could
hear her in the background and Eleisha was very nervous,
but she made the call and it was fantastic.
#She comes in every shift and immediately gets out the
vacuum cleaner and vacuums and she dusts and cleans the
glass and then lines up and wants to know what else needs
to be done which is really good. She gives us a lot of laughs.
She's got a good sense of humour and she's a really,
really good team member. She just makes herself work well
with people, but as far as a disability goes, it doesn't
matter if they have a disability. It's, it's what
they're able to achieve in the time they're here. Sometimes
somebody with a disability is probably more valuable than
somebody without because of their attitude.
#We've got a great resource of a great number of clients
and candidates for employment who could fill many
skill needs and many requirements. We, we can
support both the employer and the client in that
transition from, into work, sustaining work
and really sort of enhancing how you can work.
I can understand a lot of people are worried about,
you know, the extra training required, extra time needed.
There is some subsidies from the government which can assist
in that, so where you have a way subsidy scheme which is
a dollar value, but we like to use that to create more time to
train someone to be able to fulfil that task
because everyone understands that someone with a disability,
it may take them longer to really get entrenched
in a role, really understand their role and we
just want to take away some of that pressure from the
business to say that we can work with that person.
#We pay Eleisha and at the end of the first three months we're
reimbursed for that three months' wages and then after
that it's our responsibility to pay Eleisha which is a big help.
#So DES provider, all our clients are assessed
by Centrelink and we spend time working with
the clients to make them job ready. So building resumes,
building confidence, interview techniques, and then
also a really important part of the role is
actually engaging with local community and local business.
So trying to create those opportunities to allow
our clients to thrive in the workplace.
#When I was working by myself at the other place I felt really
lonely that I didn't have anyone to chat to, and now I work
here and there's like, everyone's nice. Everyone is so
nice and everyone who I can chat to, and I'm like happy.
#Anthony or another person from Nexus will check
on Eleisha every now and again, ring us just to
touch base to see what's happening and we can ring
them if we need to as well. My advice to anybody
looking at, at taking on a disabled person would
be to speak to the representative of whoever the
organisation is, is the provider, and find out
about the person with a disability, find out if
they're going to fit into the environment.
There's ways around fitting people into an organisation
and if that can be worked out with the representative
and the employer, well then it's definitely worth going for.
#Yeah, speak to your local DES provider. We are, you know,
the experts in this field. We have great support mechanisms.
We work with people with a disability all the time. We work
to enhance their abilities and give them opportunities to,
to thrive. It's great. It works two ways, you know,
to, to give someone with a disability employment
works really well. It gives them the independence to work,
but also with your, with your business, it dispels a lot
of myths about disabilities, so your employees, your current
employees will realise that we can work with someone with
a disability, it's no different to working with someone with,
with full ability. It doesn't make any difference. It's just
another person to enjoy working with on a day-to-day basis.
♪ Closing Music ♪