Voo doo doll pin cushins and the work program

Voodoo doll pin cushion

hand knitted by

Sharabelle

What do a voodoo doll pin cushion and the UK government work program have to do with each other?

Quite a lot actually, since one inspired me to do the other.  Or I should say the sub contracted supplier of the work program inspired me to knit one, after one of my twice monthly meetings with them.   As Julia Andrews sang in Sound of Music - Lets start at the very beginning it's a very good place to start.

I haven't been able to work for a few years due to my mental health problems. Iv also had medical problems linked to my IBS and food intolerance's.  Iv had a single goal to improve both my physical and mental health.  .  I have over a 10 year history of mental health problems.  Putting a sticky plaster on, and ignoring the problem doesn't help.  Not working allows me the time to work at making myself better

Forget the usual story's of benefits cheats that you see on the news, the majority of people on benefits have one goal.  And that's to get back into work. As part of that goal I volunteered to join the work program.  However I haven't had the best experience with the supplier of the work program that I was placed with.  The majority of my appointments saw me left  alone for the 1 hr allotted time, stuck in front of a computer looking for jobs that I'm not able to apply for yet!!! 

It was my mum that noticed I was actually more depressed after one of these appointments.  They were totally demoralising.  When they did offer me a CV course, I was given the wrong date to attend.  I turned up only to be told I needed to come back the next day.  Which I couldn't do as at the time I volunteered at the local Credit Union. 

(Never a good idea to try and bullshit someone that once worked  in a Job Agency doing admin!!!)

I won't go into word for word detail, but it was this incident that inspired me to knit my Voodoo doll pin cushion.  It also prompted me to arrange a meeting with my local job centre, where I was then referred to SAMH - Scottish Association of Mental Health charity. 

Who knew knitting a voo doo doll could be so therapeutic?

Being with SAMH has helped me a lot.  They can't make you better,   but they can help by giving you the tools you need to get there. 

On Monday afternoon this week I received a call from my work program suppliers, asking if I would be interested in a course on CV and confidence building.   I was a bit wary at first, as the only contact I'd had with them recently was through telephone interviews.    I doubled checked to make sure it wouldn't conflict with my Supervised work experience at the Pantry. Was I interested YES.

Fast forward to Monday night, watching the local Scottish News.  Imagine my surprise to find that my work program supplier was going to be featured on BBC Scotland Investigation .  Seems I'm not the only person to have problems with the work program.   Funny that they picked Monday of all days to call me, then again I might just be getting cynical in my old age. 

My main concern is that unlike local job centres, the staff I met obviously had no experience or training in dealing with people that have disabilities.  Also a lot of people don't really see Mental health problems as a disability. 

- It's all in your head.....

- You just need a swift kid up the bum...

- Would never have guessed, your too articulate....

If you missed the program Monday night, check out the link above to BBC iplayer.  It's really informative and I liked the fact that it focused both on individuals with both physical disabilities and mental health problems. 

It brought back a lot of bad memory's for me, which was kind of depressing.  But at the end of the day it was good to know I wasn't alone.  That my experience hadn't just been .." All in my head" xxxx