Enforced participation in a work placement scheme is seen a legitimate provision of personal care services to all age groups and people with disabilities.  The Tús scheme which was launched by the previous government in late 2010 never actually started as Joan Burton found out when she took over her brief in the Department of Social Protection.

However in the Jobs Initiative launched yesterday the scheme has remained in place and ‘activation’ will commence – this means that people will be invited for interview and organisations in the community and voluntary sector will be asked to host participants.

Children, older people and people with disabilities deserve much much better.  Home care and personal services are unregulated as it is.  The race to the bottom is well underway with private sector organisations being invited to apply for contracts to provide these services.  Hours of support by home helps and personal assistants are being cut and the bare essentials only being covered. Peoples own homes are the new institutions.  And now the government expects that those who are long term unemployed and forced into a placement being desirable providers of care to such groups.

It takes up to six months to get Garda clearance for such roles and training should be comprehensive and the ‘workers’ supervised.  Tús is for the reluctant, it is not a voluntary programme, the Department of Social Protection will invite people to participate and if they don’t their welfare payments will be cut.

Many people have had worries over the years about the use of Community Employment to provide services in peoples homes and to provide personal care and support.  The use of such programmes is exploitative of both the participants and those receiving the services.  If we value life we need to provide staffing that is focused and qualified and has a direct career path and for training purposes uses supervised students who are in training for such roles. Older people and people with disabilties should control and/or direct the budget that is used to provide for their support and approve of those who are working for them.

Community Employment can be extremely beneficial to participants and also communities in the services that are provided but it is a training programme first and foremost and it and Tús cannot and must not be used as a mode of delivery of vital services of a personal or intimate nature to those at risk.  The numbers of those involved in delivering services may be small but the message that is sent is huge if the Government continue to see those at risk as the recipients of forced labour.

I’ll come back to the Internships and Work Placement Programme later – I’ve had some interesting correspondence this week on the experiences of some in seeking and taking up places. Email me at tips (@) mamanpoulet.com or leave comments below if you want to let me know your views.