View the video here: Film 2: Getting Work Experience
Julian McAlpine:
My name is Julian McAlpine. I am 19 years old.
Catherine McAlpine:
My name’s Catherine McAlpine. I’m the proud mother of three young men, and my middle son is Julian.
Julian McAlpine:
In the future, new house. I get new family. I’ll be working. And Sophie is my wife.
Catherine McAlpine:
What have we got to do before you get married?
Julian McAlpine:
Possibly get a job first.
Tara Eliffe:
I’m Tara Eliffe, and I’m 33 years old.
Margo:
My name’s Margo, and I’m Tara’s mother.
Tara Eliffe:
I work at the Ombudsman’s Office. I do filing, organize meeting rooms, fill up the photocopiers, and a lot more.
Speaker 5:
That’s Nick.
Julian McAlpine:
That’s my girlfriend and-
Catherine McAlpine:
We were really keen for Julian to have the same opportunities as these brothers. The evidence is really clear that for people with intellectual disability, that lots of work experience really helps.
Catherine McAlpine:
People at the end of school fall off a cliff, is how families describe it. It’s at one moment, they’re at school and they’re doing all the things that you do at school and the next moment, there is literally nothing. There is only the bedroom and the TV. There is really nothing to do.
Catherine McAlpine:
I saw some mothers stop working around that time, or I saw that people made decisions very very quickly. We’ll just go into the day program for a little while. We’ll just do this thing for a little while, while we try and figure it out. But in between it being very difficult to navigate all the systems that you have to navigate to get to open employment people lose the motivation to keep going towards employment. We didn’t want that to happen to us.
Margo:
We thought that work experience was pretty important so that she actually found what it was that she wanted to do in her life, because having a job that you enjoy is probably the most important thing.
Tara Eliffe:
During high school, in Year 9 to Year 12, I did work experience. There’s all different kinds of them. I did office. Two of them were office and two were retail shops.
Catherine McAlpine:
We had a really great careers advisor who phoned around all the local organizations that Julian showed interest at working at. He made sure that he found work experience placements for him.
Julian McAlpine:
I was at work in Big W. I was McDonald’s, and I was working Bunnings. And a hairdresser.
Catherine McAlpine:
You worked in a hairdresser. Where else did you work?
Julian McAlpine:
Childcare for little kids.
Catherine McAlpine:
I’m very pleased to have the NDIS now. But we still find ourselves navigating between the Disability Employment Service, the NDIS, the DSP. And we had to navigate through the school as well, because it was us that suggested to the school that in Year 11 and 12 he does one day a week work experience.
Julian McAlpine:
I work in canteen in Nunawading Basketball Stadium.
Catherine McAlpine:
Julian’s older brother and younger brother were playing basketball. Then he said to me one day, “When am I playing basketball?” Basketball turned out to be really important because he could play basketball in the playground with the other boys and girls. He was accepted to be part of the basketball community at the schools.
Catherine McAlpine:
I approached the manager at the Nunawading Basketball Stadium. I went and asked her whether or not they might be prepared for Julian to do work experience. Then when he was productive that that would turn into a real job. Eventually he got good at it.
Julian McAlpine:
Making coffee, and I was serving customers. I was frying my favorite hot chips. Makes me feel happy and proud.
Margo:
The NDIS is very important to improve Tara’s skills for the workplace. She has been doing training in speak-up program and disability awareness. We currently use some of the NDIS funding for speech therapy.
Catherine McAlpine:
He has a specialist support worker who has a teaching background, does quite a lot of work with him in terms of giving change. So we were able to use some NDIS money to do some stuff at home about giving change and about serving that we could then translate straight away into his job at the canteen.
Margo:
I think the top priorities for young families to consider would be definitely travel training. Being able to catch public transport is very important. I’d say the second most important thing is to build that independence and the confidence in your person with a disability because they’ve got to try things. And it’s all right if they fail. It’s all right if they stumble. Like the rest of us, they can pick themselves up and keep going.
Catherine McAlpine:
You are allowed to have high expectations, and you are allowed to know the thing that your person can do. And you’re allowed to build on those strengths. Don’t let anyone else tell you that they can’t do the things that you know deep in your heart that they actually can. Those things include being in charge of their own life, making their own decisions, and working.
Catherine McAlpine:
Who’s in charge of your life?
Julian McAlpine:
Myself.
Catherine McAlpine:
You are in charge of your life.
