Welcome to Skill Sessions. Lots of people joining. Thank you so much for joining us today. And if it's your first time joining Skills
Sessions, welcome very welcome. And this is a an event series hosted by CareScribe. It's all designed to share knowledge around areas of
neurodiversity and disability and ultimately help build and foster an inclusive community where we can take specific topics based on
this and discuss them. Each event is based on a different topic and this month, we've got Mark Woodward head of occupational delivery
neurobox joining us. And so we're very excited to hear from Mark and so great to see so many people joining. This is fantastic. It's
lovely to see so many of you here. So thank you very much for joining and thanks for your support. I can see people are already familiar
with the the chat function. So that's brilliant. So, please do use the chat in Zoom. Say hello. Let us know where you're joining
from make sure you set the the chat setting to "All", otherwise, you're just talking to two of us panelists. So, yeah,
please make sure you set it to "All" so you can speak to everyone. But yeah, it's been amazing to see this community grow over the last year
and the conversations that we have on these calls are fantastic. So yeah, please get involved as much as you can -
great! So whilst everyone's joining and before we really kick things off, I'm going to tell you a little bit about about CareScribe,
just tell you who we are, and you know, why we run these sessions. So and my name is Rich and I'm one of the founders and directors of
CareScribe. For those of you who haven't heard of us before, we are one of the UK's leading assistive technology companies, we're based in
Bristol, myself and my other two founders, Chris and Tom, we're all neurodivergent, as are many of our team, and we spent every day
working to support disabled and neurodivergent individuals to work and study more independently, and we do that by building technology.
That's how we we try and affect change, and we have a couple of software tools which you may have heard of or may even have used, one
of them is called Caption.Ed, and the other is called TalkType.
Caption.Ed is a piece of captioning and note-taking software designed to help people better comprehend and retain some of the huge amounts of information
that are thrown at us from lots of different directions in our busy day to day lives. This is of course of tremendous value to a wide
range of people, with a wide range of disabilities and neurodivergent profiles, from those who are maybe deaf and or have hearing loss and
struggle to comprehend what's being said, and to those like me who are dyslexic, or have ADHD, ASD, who may have similar difficulties or
find it hard to retain information and stay focused. And so that's what Caption.Ed does, it really helps you to comprehend and retain some
of that sort of that information and make some sense out of the noise in our busy lives. And the other piece of software is called
TalkType, which is a dictation tool which is helping people to convert their thoughts into text, something which I and a wide range
of people find very challenging for a wide range of reasons. If you want to know any more about our assistive technology or CareScribe,
feel free to pop a message in the in the chat and we'll try and set up a demo for you, also you can add add a request on to the feedback
at the end and we'll get in touch. Or there's also a great opportunity to see our software in action in a couple of weeks when my colleague
Chris is going to be running a webinar called The Power of Assistive Technology. Our Caption.Ed and TalkType can support neurodivergent people
and people at work. So if that sounds of interest we'll ping you an email with some information about that and you'd be welcome to join that
webinar, which is focused specifically on the software. Great, still people joining, this is brilliant. As I say keep the chat going that's
that's fantastic. Quick bit of housekeeping before we hand over to Mark and get things rolling - if you're not familiar
with Zoom, captions are available, you can turn those on yourself. And again, make sure you using the chat if you want to and and keep
things moving and keep the conversation flowing. This is a very safe space. So yeah, there's no there's no wrong questions. Make sure you
ask ,and if you do find the chat distracting you can you can turn that off yourself. If you've got some pertinent questions
for myself or for Mark and if you can use the Q&A function of Zoom for that pop your questions in there. We'll have some time at
the end to answer those specific questions and you can also if you see someone else's question and think "oh I want I want an answer to
that" you can upvote it and then we'll try and make sure we get to it. So either pop your question in there or upvote other people's
questions and we'll have some time at the end. We don't always get through all the questions at the end, because we often get quite a lot, but
if we don't get to your question, don't worry we will get to it and we'll send it in the post-event email, we'll send all the answers
across and yeah, no question is a wrong question. And so yeah, please do ask and if you'd like a certificate of attendance, then after the
webinar we'll send a feedback form, and if you fill that out and in there you can request a certificate, so please make sure you do that.
And this session is being recorded. You'll be sent that recording after the session in the post-event email and
they'll be a link on social media too. Brill! So final few bits for me before we hand over to Mark and we're going to be at the Dyslexia
Show at the NEC at the end of next week - gosh that's crept up! And so if you're there then please come and see us. I know neurobox are also
there. So I don't know if Mark plans to be there, but yeah come and say hi and it's going to be a great event. And finally another
date for your diary, and the next month's Skill Sessions is already being planned and we're going to be covering, uncovering
even, reasonable adjustments for neurodiversity in the workplace. And that's on Tuesday the 9th of April, but we'll send all this
information over to you. So don't worry about it. So without further ado, I'm going to hand over to our guest Mark, as I say Mark is the
head of our occupational delivery at neurobox. For more than a decade Mark's been working with organisations, managers, employees, to
support neurodiversity and disability, and not just how to support individuals but their managers in the organisations too, so he's going
to share some of that knowledge and experience with us as we dive into all things Access To Work. So over to you Mark! Thank you very much
Rich. So I'm going to share my screen because unsurprisingly I've got some slides for people. So let me just click the right button there, and
hopefully everyone can see a big blue slide now. Okay, I'm sure somebody will tell me if you can't. So thank you ever so much for
joining us. It's really great to be able to talk to so many people and a little bit scary as well. Okay, so we're going to have a little
bit of a dive into this thing called Access To Work today. But before we do that, Let me just tell you a little bit about myself and the
organisation I work for so as which said and I work for a company called neurobox. Essentially, we support organisations to support
their disabled and neurodivergent people and we do that in a number of different ways. Generally sort of three kinds of levels in an
organisation: at the top of an organisation looking at policies and processes and things like that, on an individual level with employees
looking at workplace needs, assessments training all that sort of stuff. But also crucially in the middle working with line managers
helping the people on the on the front line of policies, if you like, to actually manage these situations and have these challenging types
of conversations. So various different levels. Myself, personally, as Rich said I've been in this space now for more than a decade. In
fact, actually, I think it's - it's a little bit more than a decade. I'm not even going to depress myself by working out the
numbers, but for a while, and I've got a few different hats and I work with organisations on all of those sorts of levels that we talked
about before and I will be at the Dyslexia show as well. I've been roped into doing some speaking there too.
So Access To Work, sometimes known as the governments best kept secret. Okay, we're going to have a go at sort of demystifying it a
little bit today and just sort of answering some of the many many questions that come up about Access To Work. Questions like "what is
Access To Work? Is it for me? Does it cost anything?" - all these sorts of things. So we're gonna go through this, ask a few
questions as we go through.
Any questions that you have that we don't answer during this or that we don't discuss as Rich said, please put them in the Q&A and and
we will get to them. Okay, we're going to leave some time after this as well to go through some too. But let's kick off a little bit with
with Access To Work. So let's start with the basics. What actually is Access To Work? Access To Work is a government scheme
public funded grant essentially to support organisations to support their disabled people and neurodifferent people, in work to stay in
work. Even to move into self employment and start a business. That's something that we see quite a lot of actually, one thing to just
notice about this though, is that Access To Work isn't there to help with business startup costs. It's to support an individual with their
needs to start a business if that makes sense. Access To Work has been around for awhile since 1994. So I want to say so about 10 years now,
and if anybody tells me it's nearly 30 years I'm just going to refuse to listen, alright, cause I'm not that old. It's administrated and
managed by the Department for Work and Pensions via the Jobcentre Plus network. And the idea of Access To Work is that it's to financially
support the employee and the employer with some of the adjustments that people may need as a result of a disability.
There's also another string to Access To Work as well, which is this relatively recent, but there's a mental health support element to
Access To Work as well. So if an individual it is off work, worried about losing a job, just struggling to cope. They do have
some support mechanisms in place to help in that area as well. So Access To Work is is a really great scheme. You may have heard lots
of things about Access To Work, not all of them great. It takes a long time. There's lots of hoops to jump through etc. And to a
degree, that's all that's all relatively true. But at the same time we are one of the very few countries in the world that has such a
scheme and we are really really lucky to have it and it works really well when it works. So let's ask the first question
that most people want to know is that: am I eligible? And the honest answer to that is usually yes, if you have a disability or a
long-term health condition which falls under the definition of disability, which we'll look at in a second, and you need adjustments
you are going to qualify for Access To Work. We also get asked sometimes well - neurodiversity? Yeah, I'm dyslexic. I'm not
disabled. Does it apply to me? And again neurodifference, almost always falls under the definition of disability. Okay, I'm speaking
of someone who's dyslexic. I don't consider myself disabled, if I have forms to fill out with a tick box that says "Do you have a
disability?" I never tick that box. I'm not disabled. I'm dyslexic, but that debate aside, under the terms of the Equality Act, I do meet
the definition of disability as a neurodifferent person. And that definition of disability is: if you have a physical or mental
impairment, and I'm not sure what sort of impairment exists if it's not physical or mental, but anyway, if you have a physical or mental
impairment that has a substantial and long-term negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities then you are meeting the
definition of disability, so neurodiversity falls within that definition. Okay, and what's really important to notice is
that actually this goes for all disabilities not just neuro differences. But formal diagnosis is not required to fall under the
definition of disability. Okay, and that's something that comes up quite a lot. What does substantial mean? Substantial is an interesting
one. I looked at one definition of substantial and the definition I got back was "not insubstantial" which was really helpful. It's a bit
gray and fuzzy and purposely so, but essentially it means more than more than trivial. Okay, long term is easier to do, to determine, long
term means 12 months. So if your illness, condition, neurodifference has lasted more than 12 months or is likely to last more than 12
months, it meets this definition and of course with neurodiversity, neurodifferences, we're born with them, they are most definitely
Long-term. Normal daily activities: going to work is classed as a normal daily activity. So essentially what we're saying here is that
anything that has an effect, a long-term negative effect, on your ability to go to work will class you as disabled. So things like
dyslexia, ADHD, etc. will almost always meet the definition of disability under the Equality Act. So if you do meet that definition
of disability, you will be eligible for Access To Work support.
Like with all things in life - there is some small print alright, and and the small print around this isn't anything particularly onerous.
So you need to be 16 or over, not unreasonable, unlikely that you're going to be in work if you're not 16 or over. You need to be in or
about to start work and this includes being self-employed as well.
You need to be normally resident in England, Scotland, or Wales, people from other EU countries are eligible as well as long as they've got
work permits and so on and so forth. But normally you need to be living in the country. Some benefits can restrict the amount of
Access To Work you may be eligible for. It's a bit of a moving thing. So it's something that I'm not going to pin figures on or
anything here, but just be aware that there are certain benefits that can restrict the amount of Access To Work that you can get.
Trainees, interns, apprentices are also eligible as long as they're part of a recognised scheme. Okay, and funding might be limited if
you're regularly traveling outside of the of England, Scotland, and Wales. So the Access To Work is designed to support people with
work within England Scotland and Wales. So if you're somebody that's regularly in traveling to the States, for example, as part of
your role, then your support is unlikely to extend to the time that you're abroad. And the final one is specifically for civil
servants. If you are a civil servant you do not qualify for access to work. Okay. There are some quite complicated legal reasons why that
is but that doesn't mean that support is not available for you. If you're a civil servant, support is still there. There are just
different pathways to access that support. So that's the small print and there's nothing in there that's particularly onerous or scary or
unreasonable. I don't think.
What type of support is available?
The Equality Act says that if an employee has a disability then an organisation is obligated to make reasonable adjustments, and those
adjustments can be absolutely anything, from flexibility around start times, through adjustments that cost money, for example bits
of software or equipment. Now, Access To Work is designed to help organisations with those adjustments that cost money. So the
sorts of things Access To Work are looking at funding are things like: assistive technology, software, equipment, communication support for
interview. So for example for someone who is perhaps deaf and they may need a sign language interpreter in an interview for example,
Access To Work will fund those sorts of things. Adaptations to premises or to vehicles, travel either to work or in work, and that's
something that we see quite a lot, and that is usually for people with sort of physical restrictions around travel whether that be sort of
musculoskeletal or whether it be sensory, like someone who's blind for example, but it can also be there to support people with some neuro-
differences. Like for example, autism, who may find it extremely challenging to catch the rush-hour tube train to get to work on
time for example. Access To Work will fund alternative ways of travel. Support workers again, a really really great adjustment for
some people and support workers can mean all sorts of different things from somebody who will help, for example, the
administration side of a person's role all the way through to someone who makes support with travel arrangements that sort of thing. And as
I mentioned before the mental health support services well, which is a really really important add-on. So those are all the sorts of
adjustments that we can be looking at with Access To Work. And that's just a few examples. There are many many others and Access To Work
quite good in that they don't necessarily have a defined catalog of what they will or won't look at in my experience they're quite open to
exploring different things.
But as an organisation, how do we determine what is a reasonable adjustment? And one of the important things that I want to sort of
mention with regards to Access To Work and and reasonable adjustments is that Access To Work will advise an organisation on adjustments, but
only really on adjustments for which they provide funding. There will be other adjustments that an organisation can make to support an
individual that don't cost money or require funding. For example, as I mentioned before maybe sort of flexibility around
start/finish times, maybe an allowance to work from home a little bit more often, those sorts of things. Now, they don't require funding
so Access To Work are not going to advise you as an organisation, but they could be considered. Okay, just to confuse things a little bit, Access
to work call those types of adjustments, the ones for which they don't require funding, they call them reasonable adjustments, but in
reality any adjustment that is made is a reasonable adjustment. Okay, so I just want to sort of clarify that because that's a
misunderstanding that comes up quite frequently, but with regards to the word "reasonable" if you are asked for an adjustment by an
employee, whether that be through a piece of equipment or whether it may be to work from home a little bit longer than normal. How do you
as an organisation work out whether that it's a reasonable request or not? And the honest answer is it's really difficult. Okay,
and it's going to be different for different organisations and different roles. But there are a couple of questions that you can ask
yourself that what might actually help clarify what's reasonable and what's not reasonable, and those questions are first of all, "how much
of a difference is this adjustment actually going to make to this person?". Is it the difference between just making one aspect of the
job a little bit easier or is it the difference between them being able to do their job or not. How important is its adjustment to them?
Secondly, how practical is it going to be to put this into place? Is it going to mean a major reorganisation or is it just going to be
slightly inconvenient? The third question, is how affordable is it? Not how much does it cost, how affordable is it? And that question, the
threshold for that is it's obviously fairly low because the chances are that Access To Work are going to provide some funding for it as
well. And finally, the final question to ask, is will this adjustment affect other people's health and safety? Health and safety overrules
everything right? So those are four questions that an organisation can sort of explore to help them make a decision whether or not an
adjustment may be reasonable or not. Hope that helps.
Okay. Another question that comes up quite a lot is: Will I have to pay anything? Now as an employee, the answer is almost always no.
Okay, if you're an employee, if you're self-employed, if you need help in job interviews, you will not be asked to make any contribution
whatsoever. And as I put on this slide, the only exception to that is if you are going to gain some benefit from this adjustment outside
of work. Okay, personally, I can't think I've ever come across an instance of that but it's there, so not unreasonable. So generally
speaking if you're an employee, or self-employed, no you do not have to pay anything at all. What about employers? As an employer will I
have to pay anything? That's a little bit more complicated? Okay, but there are some hard and fast rules. First of all, if the employee
is new, in other words if they've been employed for less than six weeks when they apply, then as an employer no, there is no
contribution that you need to make whatsoever. It's entirely funded, any adjustments or the recommended, will be entirely funded and there
is no contribution at all for any of the mental health support services.
Outside of that - so if the employee has been employed for more than six weeks when they apply, you will have to make a contribution as the
employer and that contribution varies depending on the size of your organisation. Okay, very very basically, the larger the organisation the
more you're expected to pay.
If you were relatively small organisation and that's classed as up to 49 employees, then you will be expected to pay the first twenty
percent of anything that's recommended. Okay, so if there's a bit of software recommended for say, 500 pounds, bit of equipment recommended
for 1,000 pounds, that's 1,500 pounds. You'll be expected to pay 20% of that which is 300 pounds, Access To Work will pay the rest, and
there is a ceiling - you won't be asked to pay any more than 10,000 pounds. Okay by sorting 20% of 10,000 pounds is the ceiling. If you're
medium size, fifty to two hundred and forty nine employees, it goes up to 500 pounds, plus the twenty percent. So the rules are still
the same, but you'll also have to pay an additional 500 pounds. A larger employees 250 plus again exactly the same 20% but you'll also
be expected to contribute an additional 1,000 pounds. So the the logic is, that the larger the organisation the the better the ability
to make a contribution. So the greater the contribution is expected. That's essentially it, okay.
Now how does this work in practice? So let's take - you know what? Let's take a story. How does Access To Work actually work in
real life? So we're going to we're going to give you a sort of an example. So I want you to meet Charlie.
Charlie's just started a new role. Okay. Now Charlie has suspected ADHD, but doesn't have a formal diagnosis. That's quite normal. As I
said before a formal diagnosis is not required. Okay, and and there are many reasons for that but you won't ever be asked to prove
disability and that's really really good because the certain - ADHD okay in my area of the country at the moment, the waiting list for an
ADHD diagnosis is currently sitting at five years. Now if I needed that formal diagnosis in order to get support in my job, I would
either have to go and fund a private assessment, which by the way is still likely to take a couple of years, or I've got to wait five
years. So essentially I've got to survive five years without any support before I'm eligible. So it's a great thing that a formal
diagnosis is not required. It can sometimes be concerning for organisations if a formal diagnosis is not required because they
will ask questions like reasonable questions. Like for example, well how do I know what the disability is? How do I know if this person is
dyslexic or if this person has ADHD etc.? Okay,
and I understand that question. But also at the same time I would suggest also that actually the diagnosis although really really
helpful, is not the most important part of this equation. If you have an employee that is struggling in their role, or with certain aspects
of the role and there are some things that you can put in place to support that employee, does it matter what the diagnosis is? Let's
look at getting those adjustments in place. Okay, so formal diagnosis is not required. Let's say for argument's sake, that
Charlie's on the on the waiting list at the moment for a formal diagnosis. But at the moment there isn't one there, but she's starting
this new role. Now Charlie is concerned that their ADHD might affect them in that role and they really really want to do well in this job.
Okay, Charlie's new manager has done a great job of welcoming Charlie in and being supportive and that's essentially meant that Charlie
feels comfortable talking to their manager about their ADHD. Now that's really really important because without that feeling of safety,
of security, a new employee is naturally going to be reticent about stepping forward and saying actually "I need some extra things".
Alright, it's much more likely that that employee is going to stay quiet and kind of see how things work out. Okay, at least until I
know the organisation better, I know my manager better and I feel a little bit more comfortable talking about this stuff. So having that
safe environment, having that sort of feeling of inclusivity if you like, is a really really important thing for organisations to
cultivate. It means that people are more comfortable stepping forward earlier, and that means I think two really important things. One: it
means that that employee gets their support earlier. It means that they're not going to wait for things to start going wrong before the
reasons are looked at and support is put in place. It also means that if that employee applies for Access To Work within the first six
weeks of their employment, as an organisation, you won't have to contribute anything to the funding. So that environment is
really important. So good work, Charlie's manager. Okay. Now Charlie's manager knows about Access To Work. So he signposts
Charlie to Access To Work and explains to Charlie what Access To Work is all about, and suggests that she apply. Now again, this is an
important point because an organisation can't apply for access to work even though the funding exists to help the organisation. The
application process is owned by the employee. It's the employee that applies for Access To Work. And it's not difficult to do, there's a
really great website. If you were to Google or type in Access To Work into your favourite search engine, the government, the Access To Work
website is pretty much definitely going to be the first one on the page and within that website, it's relatively straightforward. However,
someone with neurodiversity, filling out forms, starting processes can be extremely difficult. And the person is likely to
procrastinate a lot, will begin the process and then be asked a question they don't have the answer for go away and never come back.
So it can be quite a daunting process for people to do. So as an organisation, as Charlie's manager if you like, it can be a really
great thing to actually support that employee through that journey, through that process.
But let's say that Charlie has done this, Charlie's manager has helped through the process and Charlie has made that initial application on
the Access To Work website, which incidentally consists of filling out a relatively short issue form. The next step is that Access To Work
will arrange a call with Charlie, a phone call, and it's essentially just to go through the form that Charlie's filled out online,
just to sort of clarify what's been put in the form, double check some information, and at that point a date
will be agreed for a proper workplace needs assessment. And that workplace needs assessment will be offered either via telephone, via
Teams, or Zoom or in person. Okay, traditionally before before the apocalypse, it was always in person, an Access To Work assessor will
come out and visit you in your workplace and carry out this assessment. Nowadays, I think probably it's fair to say that the vast
majority of carried out remotely or over the phone. So a date and a method for this assessment is agreed with Charlie. The next step is
that the Access To Work assessment actually takes place. So in Charlie this case, it's over the telephone. What does an
assessment look like? So assessments. Access To Work assessments typically take around 30 minutes, around half an hour. Okay there are
going to be exceptions to that, some will take longer and so on and so forth, but typically around half an hour and the assessor is going
to ask Charlie all about their role. All what their role consists of, the sort of responsibilities and their duties within that role, even
down to the depth of what type of applications and computer programs are you using for your role? The learn about Charlie's own strengths
and challenges. And they'll build a really really sort of detailed picture of what work at life looks like for Charlie.
From that, the assessor will then go away and put together a report. That report will detail everything that the assessor and Charlie spoke
about and it will make suggestions for adjustments that Access To Work are prepared to fund and that the assessor believes will support
Charlie in that role. Okay. And as I said, those sort of recommendations will look at all sorts of things that we spoke about
before, that Access To Work fund. Okay, so it might be pieces of equipment, maybe perhaps some furniture a desk for example, can
be a really really great adjustment for somebody with ADHD. It may be training, and that could be awareness training for Charlie's
colleagues and manager to help them get a better understanding of Charlie's disability and neurodifference. It might be coaching -
coaching is a really important adjustment for people with neurodifference. Coaching is where that employee will spend time with
with a coach, that's also an expert in that particular disability or neurodifference, and that coach will work with Charlie, just to help
develop ways of working, strategies to support Charlie in their role. The sorts of things that coaching cover can vary immensely
depending on the individual and the role etc. Workplace coaching is something I've done an awful lot of in my time. I'm
actually a coaching supervisor these days. I've worked with people on all sorts of things from very very straightforward things - like how
do I manage the 300 emails I get every day, all the way through to - had a really interesting once actually which I don't mind sharing
quickly. I've worked with a library assistant who got coaching through Access To Work and when we sat down and spoke with her and
also her manager one of the big difficulties that came forward was that this particular person was just not getting through their list
of tasks each day. And this was because they spent way too long talking to the library users. And we have to explore that, and it
turned out that the reason for this was that this particular person just found it very difficult to end conversations. People would come
into the library looking for a conversation and a chat and she would stand there for ages talking to them about everything, and she didn't want
to be rude by saying that she had things to do. So part of their coaching, was exploring that and developing strategies and methods for
how to do that in a way that felt comfortable for them. So coaching can cover absolutely any aspect of a role which is why it's very difficult to
explain exactly what coaching is because it's very different. But it's a really important adjustment that Access To Work fund. Assistive
technology - another really important thing. There are so many applications out there and and Rich mentioned a couple that
CareScribe do, really really important applications that can support people in all sorts of different aspects of their role and again
Access To Work will fund these as well. So this report will turn up. A few days later, optimistically, hopefully, okay and Charlie gets
that report, that report goes to Charlie. Not the employer. It's Charlie's report.
And the other thing that this report will also do is that for every single recommendation every single adjustment that it suggests, it
will also point you toward an organisation that can provide that adjustment and an idea of the costing.
The next thing that happens is that Charlie meets with her manager to go through this report. Now in this case, the manager agrees to
implement all of the suggestions that are in that report, but it's important to know that an organisation doesn't have to agree to
implement all of those suggestions. They are suggestions. The decision as to whether or not a suggestion / adjustment is reasonable
or not, is always going to be down to the organisation. It's always the organisations right to decide if something is reasonable
or not. That may well be tested at some other point, but it's not for Access To Work to say you've got to do this. It's always going to be
the employees choice. In this case, the manager agrees to implement all of the things that are in the report and also discusses with
Charlie if there's anything else that the company can do to support. Another really important thing, because as I mentioned earlier this
Access To Work report is really only interested in the sorts of adjustments for which funding is available. Okay, things like
starting a bit later for example, flexible breaks and so on and so forth - Access To Work are typically not going to be interested in
that's up to you as an organisation to work out. So Charlie has that conversation with their manager as well and they look at
other areas of support. So the next step is to actually get this in place. Now any organisation could go off to all the different
suppliers that are listed in that Access To Work report, but in this case Charles organisation decides to just go to one single
organisation. Okay, somebody like perhaps, neurobots, and source everything from one supplier, and there's many many advantages for
doing this, okay. 1 - if you're getting everything from one place, typically, you're only going to have to deal with one invoice, one
purchase order, admin costs, and time goes right down, but also there's a really good chance that many of these organisations that have been
recommended to supplies, your organisation will never have worked with before so there may be some hoops to jump through, around
creating new accounts, due diligence, and all that sort of thing as well. Having one single supplier makes that process a lot easier. Also
from a logistical point of view, and we've been asked as providers to deliver some training on a piece of software that's been recommended
but not the software. Okay, that's great. No problem at all happy to do that, we'll agree a training date fantastic. Our trainer will arrive
all ready to do the training to be told but ah, the software hasn't arrived yet. Again, all those sorts of things can be avoided if it's
all coming from one supplier. All right. So many many reasons for single sourcing all of this stuff.
Another thing that and again, this is something that we get asked to do an awful lot as a single source supplier, is the support around
this stuff. A lot of the assistive technology is going to be fairly new to organisations IT departments. So very often there can be some
some teething issues around compatibility and installation and things like that. We've probably seen it all before and again, we're there
to support with all that side of things as well. So anyway,
all the items are sourced. They're all sourced from the single source supplier, and it all turns up and is installed and implemented
appropriately.
Now the organisation at this point, has had to fund all of this. Okay, they've paid for everything up front so far, but now the organisation
can claim back the funding from Access To Work and they do this simply by submitting the invoices and receipts, back to access to
work. Up to a probably a couple of years ago, this was a very manual process. It had to physically go through the physical post. Okay,
there is now an online form that the invoices and receipts can be submitted through, and so this is done, again a process that's much
easier if you've got one receipt of invoice rather than dozens of them, but they are submitted up through and the organisation
receives the funding back from Access To Work that they're Due. And as Charlie raised all this and applied early on in her
employment within the six weeks, actually all of the funding is done. Had it been a bit later than that, then they would have been granted
the cost less their expected contribution. So that's the process of Access To Work. Okay. It actually does work quite well. One
of the biggest complaints get about Access To Work is the time things take and that is a difficulty. It's got a lot better but it is one of
the things that comes up, but as I said before, the process itself isn't too bad and we are really really lucky as a society that have
such a thing as Access To Work. I'm just noticing the time. I've got til 1.50 I believe, and I think we're just about there
now, so I'm going to finish my slideshow there. And I'm going to hand back to Rich and and, well, we'll look at
some of the questions and and hopefully give you some answers. Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing my screen at that point.
Cheers Mark, thank you so much. That was yeah, that was fantastic. I knew there was going to be lots of interest because well when you
when you when you have to upgrade your Zoom license cause so many people are signing up for the webinar, you know, you know that it's going to
be an interesting topic and looking at the Q&aA section. I think we were sort of 10 minutes in and already had sort of 10
questions. So we've got an awful lot of questions to get through, just setting expectations. We won't get through them all and please do
upvote questions, you know that you may want answers to and we can try and get to those as as a priority. And any questions we haven't
answered, don't worry. We will answer them and we'll ping over a long list of questions and answers in the follow-up
email. So we'll get to everything. Yeah, really really interesting questions. Let's see, if we've got some answers. So Mark the top of the
list and upvoted quite a lot, is "Is an employer legally obliged to make the adjustments recommended by Access To Work?" somebody's asked, and
unfortunately, it's quite common for staff to get pushback from that from their managers. Yeah, it is and it's a good question. It's an
important question and the answer is that
an organisation is legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments. Okay, but they are allowed to determine what the word reasonable
means for that organisation. That means that if they think a recommendation from Access To Work is unreasonable, they can choose
not to implement it, that's their right. Now that doesn't mean the organization is correct. Okay. Unfortunately, that's only ever going
to be tested and challenged in a tribunal. Okay, that's that's the reality of it and there is no - unfortunately, there's no there's no
set bunch of rules that you can put an adjustment through that will tell you whether or not it's reasonable or not. It's always going to be a
subjective decision and it goes back to those four questions that I raised earlier on, around what is reasonable and this is one of the biggest
sort of contentions. Now, I would suggest that if a professional needs assessor who spends their life doing needs assessments for access to
work as made a suggestion, you would be a brave organisation to say that actually "I know better and this is an unreasonable suggestion".
You probably need very very sound reasoning to argue that case but it happens. All right, but in answer to your question, unfortunately, no
an organisation is not legally obligated to implement it just because Access To Workers suggested it. They can make a decision that it's an
unreasonable adjustment, but at the same time an employee has the right to challenge that decision in a tribunal.
Amazing. Thank you Mark. I mean, yeah, and there's often things that you know are actually raised in the Q&A section and an
interesting point, which there's things that also play into whether something is reasonable such as you know from a software perspective
like information security, data protection GDPR. These things are like really important for, from a security
perspective in organisations, and it's going to be more and more so. That's one of the
reasons why the word reasonable is purposefully a little bit gray and fuzzy, because it has to be subjective in for that organisation with
the best will in the world, a workplace needs assessor, and I'm speaking as a workplace needs assessor. We get a very small amount of
time to have a snapshot of that organisation. We can't possibly know the details of an IT infrastructure, of their GDPR policies. Okay,
we will always make recommendations with a good heart. Okay, we don't have the full picture. Which is why it's important that an
organisation is allowed to make those decisions. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks Mark and next question from Lizzie is "Do you know what
kind of things are available in the mental health support services category?" A little bit. Yes. I'm not an expert on this branch of
Access To Work, I have to admit, but they do provide a certain number of talking therapy sessions. Okay,
again, most of the sessions and the support they provide tend to be online sort of web-based support, but for my understanding there is
some proper talking therapy available. I don't know how much or how easy it is to access. Thanks. Thanks Mark. There's a couple of them, bit of
chat going on in the chat section as well. So hopefully if people in the attendees know extra information -
please pop it in. It's not an area that I'm particularly well versed in, on that side of things. Fantastic and next question is
and there's a couple of questions, I think that link to this: "Can somebody and get help from Access To Work for interviews for
instance if there's no employer yet?" and I know there's a couple of questions around sort of the timing of when you can get access to
work support, whether you've started employment or you're about to start. Yeah, good questions, good questions.
And yes, you can apply for support for interviews. That's absolutely quite normal and no problem whatsoever, in terms of
beginning the application process before you start a job, again that's relatively normal as long as you've got some proof that you've got a
job - a letter of acceptance and so on and so forth. And again, no problem whatsoever. Fantastic. Thank you and a an interesting
question here, and it's been upvoted "So and I've heard that applying for Access To Work through the Access To Work scheme can have
negative ramifications later down the line. Is there anything we need to be aware of that could potentially be negative?".
Okay. That's an interesting question.
I would be interested in understanding a little bit more about what those negative connotations may be off the top of my head, I can't
think of any other than the fact that asking for support in a particular organisation may be frowned upon. But that's more than
organisational thing and than an Access To Work thing, but I can't think of anything specifically related to Access To Work. That's
going to come back and bite somebody. Yeah, but I'm happy to sort of answer again with a bit more information if that's okay. I think
that yeah as you say can it comes down to organisational culture and psychological safety within an organisation more than anything.
I'd be very surprised and understanding this. That's a you know protected conversation within DWP as well from
A needs assessment perspective.
Probably the last question I think we will get in before we need to start to wrap things up. So: "If an employee's been given a piece of
tech as part of their grant, and what obligation does the company have to ensure it can be used on company laptops?". Yeah again, really
really good question, because there are compatibility issues and there are other issues that can render some software, unreasonable adjustments.
So as you sort of alluded to a moment ago, which there may be some bits of software that breach of companies GDPR policies for
example, and again, it comes down to this question of reasonable. And back to the second question if you like, how practical would it be to
implement? Well, if it contravenes our policies and our GDPR policies, and those GDPR policies are reasonable, then it's an
unreasonable adjustment. But what I would say is that it's highly unlikely that that's the only software option available, or even the
only way of addressing that particular difficulty. Okay, just because one adjustment is impractical or unreasonable doesn't mean that we
can't look at other options that make sense, but just because access to work have recommended a specific piece of software, but we can't
implement it on our systems, that doesn't mean that that organisation has to make it work. Brilliant, I'm going to squeeze in one last
question - make it an easy one, please - it's black and white, hopefully, and it came up a few times in the
chat. "Once you put some equipment in place for Access To Work whose property is it, is it the employers or the employees?". Good question.
Good question. Okay, so the the software or the equipment whatever it might be belongs to the person that paid for it and that's the
organisation. Okay, the funding goes to the organisation. It's owned by the organisation. That said, it's quite normal for
organisations to just let you have the equipment if and when you leave or move jobs, okay, certainly in the case of specialist chairs
or furniture that type of thing and especially if it's at your home, they're unlikely to come out and collect it and take it back if no
one else is ever going to use it. Software is a little bit different because there is quite a lot of licensing things to take into
consideration about transferring licenses. But if you move jobs you can apply for Access To Work again. Okay, so it's not that
you're not going to get that software anymore. Thank you so much for that Mark. That was a be a popular question in the chat.
Well, look, I think it's it's time to wrap up, and there is lots of questions unanswered we will get back to them and thank you so much
to everybody for joining us participating in the chat. Every time we do one of these sessions it's
fantastic to see the community that we're building. So thank you again to everybody for joining and being a part of that and a big
shout out to Mark. Thanks so much for joining us and imparting all that wisdom on Access To Work. It's yeah, as you can see it's
certainly been very very popular and lots of people have got a lot of value out of it. And just to mention you will get the slide deck, we'll
answer your questions, and you will get a recording, we'll send all that across in emails, and they'll be also some stuff on social media that
you can, and you'll be able to see. Certificates of attendance, again just fill out that survey link at the end, that feedback link
and we'll get you a certificate to say that you were you were here. And if you want to hear about any of our software or CareScribe then
please just request a demo, we'll be happy to oblige. We do these sessions regularly, we do them every month and and they're
going from strength to strength. So if you do want to come and join us for our next session it is a webinar, so it's online again. It's
the 9th of April. We'll send you some details. We've got Helen Eaton who's going to be joining us to cover reasonable adjustments for
neurodiversity in the workplace, so that follows on really nicely from this session. So, please do come along come along to that. And
again, if you at the Dyslexia show come in say hi, well to myself answer to Mark, and we're both going to be there as well as our
teams. So yeah just to say thanks again for coming along. Thank you for participating and continuing to make these events what they
are. So thanks so much everybody. And yeah, hopefully see you next time.