"Reasonable adjustments for disabled workers & Access to Work scheme"

Employers must make reasonable adjustments to make sure disabled workers are not seriously disadvantaged when doing their jobs. Disabled workers are protected by the Equality Act 2010. In Northern Ireland workers are protected by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Workers must be given access to training opportunities, recreation and refreshment facilities.

Employers have to make reasonable adjustments even if they don’t employ the person directly - this includes contract workers, trainees, apprentices and business partners. Access to Work can help employers with some costs involved in making adjustments for disabled workers.

What reasonable adjustments are

Examples could involve:

• doing things another way – e.g. allowing someone with social anxiety disorder to have their own desk instead of hot-desking
• making physical changes – e.g. installing a ramp for a wheelchair user or an audio-visual fire alarm for a deaf person
• letting a disabled person work somewhere else – e.g. on the ground floor for a wheelchair user
• changing their equipment – e.g. providing a special keyboard if they have arthritis
• allowing employees who become disabled to make a phased return to work – e.g. working flexible hours or part-time

More advice: You can get advice on reasonable adjustments from the Disability Employment Adviser (DEA) at your local Jobcentre Plus office via the Access to Work scheme.

Access to Work

Overview: An Access to Work grant helps pay for practical support if you have a disability, health or mental health condition so you can:

• start working
• stay in work
• start your own business

How much you get depends on your circumstances. The money doesn’t have to be paid back and will not affect your other benefits. Access to Work is only available in England, Scotland and Wales.

What you'll get: There is no set amount for an Access to Work grant. How much you get depends on your circumstances. The money can pay for things like:

• adaptations to the equipment you use
• special equipment
• fares to work if you can’t use public transport
• a support worker or job coach to help you in your workplace
• a support service if you have a mental health condition and you’re absent from work or finding it difficult to work
• disability awareness training for your colleagues
• a communicator at a job interview
• the cost of moving your equipment if you change location or job

Eligibility: Access to Work grants are only available if the employer is based in England, Scotland or Wales.

• You must be 16 or over and either:
• about to start a job or work trial
• in a paid job or self-employed (you can’t get a grant for voluntary work)

You might also qualify if you’re getting New Enterprise Allowance or starting work experience under a Youth Contract.

Your condition: Your disability or health condition must affect your ability to do a job or mean you have to pay work-related costs. For example, special computer equipment or travel costs because you can’t use public transport. Your mental health condition must affect your ability to do a job and means you need support to:

• start a new job
• reduce absence from work
• stay in work

Exceptions

You might not qualify if you get any of these benefits:

• Incapacity Benefit
• Employment and Support Allowance
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• Income Support
• National Insurance Credits

Changing jobs: You can transfer your grant to another employer if you change jobs.

How to claim

Follow these steps if you think you can get help from Access to Work.

1. Contact your Access to Work centre - see below to find the right centre.
2. Print the Access to Work eligibility letter and take it to your employer or to a job interview.
3. An adviser will contact you and your employer to find out what help and support is needed.

Find your Access to Work centre: Contact the centre that covers the area where you live. You may need the following information:

• your National Insurance number
• your workplace address, including your postcode
• the name, email address and work phone number of a workplace contact (e.g. your manager)
• your unique tax reference number (if you’re self-employed)
• the name of your New Enterprise Allowance mentor (if you have one)

London (for South East England and East England)
Access to Work - London | atwosu.london@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: 020 8426 3110 | Textphone: 020 8426 3133 | Fax: 020 8426 3134 Jobcentre Plus | Access to Work Operational Support Unit | Nine Elms Lane | London
SW95 9BH

Cardiff (for South West England, Wales, West Midlands and East Midlands)
Access to Work - Cardiff | atwosu.cardiff@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: 02920 423 291 | Textphone: 0845 602 5850 | Fax: 02920 423 342
Jobcentre Plus | Access to Work Operational Support Unit | Alexandra House | 377 Cowbridge Road East | Cardiff CF5 1WU

Glasgow (for Scotland, North West England, North East England, Yorkshire and Humberside)
Access to Work - Glasgow | atwosu.glasgow@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Telephone: 0141 950 5327 | Textphone: 0845 602 5850 | Fax: 0141 950 5265
Jobcentre Plus | Access to Work Operational Support Unit | Anniesland JCP | Baird Street | Glasgow | G90 8AN

What will my share of the costs be?

When cost sharing applies, Access to Work will refund up to 80% of the approved costs between a threshold and £10,000. As the employer, you will contribute 100% of costs up to the threshold level and 20% of the costs between the threshold and £10,000.

The amount of the threshold is determined by the number of employees you have.

Number of employees      Amount of threshold
0 to 49 employees            nil
50 to 249 employees        £500
Over 250 employees         £1000

Any balance above £10,000 will normally be met by Access to Work.

If the support also provides a general business benefit, a contribution will be sought in addition to any compulsory cost share.

What can we provide you

Following an assessment, Freedom of Speech Ltd can provide you with the solution recommended for you. This can be in the form of:

• software to enable you to dictate text onto a computer or read e-mails and documents back to you
• hardware to enable work more ergonomically on your PC or digital audio recorders to enable you to records your thoughts and letters
• training to teach you how to use this equipment effectively and so minimise the impact that you disability has on you job role

Give us a call or send an e-mail via our contact page for further details.

This article can be downloaded as a PDF document by clicking here

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"Living with Dyslexia"

Dyslexia. It affects approximately 10% of the population. 1 in 10 of us has Dyslexia. But what is Dyslexia? What is it like to live with Dyslexia and how does Dyslexia affect a person’s day to day living?

Dyslexia is derived from a Greek word. ‘Dys’ meaning poor or inadequate and ‘Lexis’ which is the meaning for words or language. It is a spectrum disorder which commonly runs in families, with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.

Those affected can experience difficulty with spelling, reading and writing.  It can also affect the memory and the ability to retain information. So timetables, the alphabet and remembering peoples name can be a challenge. Even something that would seem straight forward to others such as walking to work in the morning can be difficult.

A brilliant oral response or answer may be giving but it is a struggle to write thoughts down. This can lead to underperformance throughout life. School is something that can be a very stressful experience as Dyslexia can go undetected for some time, with the student becoming frustrated and as a result of this can start to misbehave. Struggling to learn like others this is usually the point where the lack of confidence starts to set in and the desire to be invisible when learning. It is key that the correct tools and help are available in the early years so that a child with Dyslexia can learn and achieve to their best.

Dyslexics can also suffer with Audio Sequential Deficit. This is when a word is spoken but something different is heard.

Dyslexia can be seen as a hindrance to one’s life but it can also be a great gift. There is a growing number of academics who believe there is a positive side to Dyslexia. A dyslexic can master certain skills faster than those without the condition. They think differently and can have specific talents. It is often said that easy tasks are hard and hard tasks are easy.

Now for the science behind Dyslexia. There are certain areas of the left hemisphere in the brain which are very different in those with Dyslexia. The left hemisphere is the language part of the brain. A dyslexic’s brain is not damaged in anyway, it is just simply different.

There are many successful and famous dyslexic people that have walked this world. Leonardo De Vinci, Michael Angelo, Albert Einstein, Tom Cruise, Richard Branson and many more.

Richard Branson had no understanding at school and when he started his first business he was unable to tell the difference between net and gross profit. Even so, he became one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. Many dyslexics grow up to be entrepreneurs as they show a lack of fear when risk taking.

There are many myths I wish to settle when it comes to Dyslexia. Dyslexia is not rare, it is not a visual impairment, it is not a hearing impediment, and people with Dyslexia can read! It is simply just a brain created differently...and here at Freedom of Speech we celebrate this and provide our Dyslexic users with the tools and equipment needed for their success.

Some members of our Freedom of Speech team are dyslexic so we understand first hand how you are feeling and can relate to your experiences. The frustration and the determination to succeed is something that we have felt ourselves at one or more points in our lives.

If you would like advice on the products and services we offer to help with your Dyslexic journey, please do get in touch with us.

‘Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts’ – Albert Einstein

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“A picture (or video) can speak a thousand words”

We passionate about proving the best solutions for making your working life easy, more efficient and enabling you to save time and money. We believe that Olympus provide the best hardware and software for recording and managing your dictated speech…so we have linked some great You Tube videos below as we believe that a picture (or video in this case!) can speak a thousand words.

If you currently use an analogue dictation system (such as audio cassettes for the authors and tape machines with foot pedals for the transcriptionists), migrating to a digital system is a no-brainer.  Have a look at this video giving you an overview of how digital dictation works  http://youtu.be/5jpNaMLGbiE - it’s fast, secure and effective!

Olympus produce a variety of excellent digital recorders depending on your environment.

Professional environments

For professional use such as hospitals and legal practices, you’ll really like the Olympus DS-7000 digital recorder. There is a great video about this device here http://youtu.be/IvHGRimKxlo - it comes with a great software application called ODMS r6 (which stands for ‘Olympus Dictation Management software’) that enables you to manage how the recordings you create are downloaded to your PC and saved to a shared folder on your server or e-mailed to transcriptionists to type up.

This video shows you how the software manages your recordings http://youtu.be/_oKTuYCb6pw

Education environments

For students, teachers and other casual digital dictation users who need to record lectures or their own voice for listening to later (or even turning into text using Dragon NaturallySpeaking software!), the Olympus DM-670 digital recorder is a brilliant solution.

Take a look at http://youtu.be/0iqjKwpOIlQ to see this device in action and also http://youtu.be/tVLgW8szhQ8 which shows you the Sonority software that this device is supplied with.

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"What our clients say about us"

We have had some great feedback over the years from many of our clients. We gathered together some of this communication which can be expanded by clicking on the image above. It's honest feedback from real people who have used our training and support services. You can also download and view a PDF version of this by clicking here.

If we have trained you, we would really appreciate hearing your experience by completing our training feedback form.

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"Speech recognition software...by the numbers"

Did you know that a relatively fast typist who can type 50 net words per minute will produce a 300-word e-mail in 6 minutes. Using speech recognition software, a person dictating 140-160 net words per minute can produce the same 300-word e-mail in about 2 minutes – this is one third of the time.

This and other facts about speech recognition software can be found by clicking on the image above.

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"How clean is your desk?"

So my bet is that you are currently sitting in front of a computer at work reading this. Cup of tea in hand and a biscuit perhaps? Those crumbs falling over your keyboard? Thought so.
Well finish that snack before you read any further because you are about to uncover the truth of what really is lurking on and around your desk.
The average person in the United Kingdom spends 9 hours a day working at their desk. That’s nearly 30 years of our lives spent at work. Over 2 and a half hours a day of this is spent reading and responding to emails… that adds up to 81 days a year. Scary huh?
The English population spends more time online than the inhabitants of any other country in the world.
Hopefully I am starting to create a picture now of how much time and energy we spend sitting around our ever faithful keyboards and mice. Don’t forget the monitor too.
Your trusty keyboard contains 70% more bacteria than your toilet seat. Yes you read that correctly… 70% more than your toilet seat.
The area on your desk where your hands rest has around 10,000 bacteria. Not to mention your office phone which hosts around 25,000 germs per square inch.
Reaching for the antibacterial spray yet?
There are ways to fight back. (I can hear the sigh of relief)
The obvious way is to clean your desk regularly and shake out those Hobb Nobbs from the keyboard. Wash your hands regularly and do not eat at your desk. Remember the toilet seat statistic every time you consider eating that ham sandwich whilst answering those last few emails. If you really want to fight the germs, why touch the keyboard at all. Avoid the scary toilet seat statistic entirely.
Introducing the world of speech recognition software! "Why talk when you can type" we say?
Voice Recognition software has been around for over 30 years. Its success has grown tremendously in the last 10 years with the technology improvements and new features. The product is growing from strength to strength.
Aimed at all ages and backgrounds, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is user friendly, fun and a breath of fresh air to those that have spent years bashing away at their keyboards.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking software is available in a variety of versions. Please see our website for pricing and product information. Or why not give us a call on 01903 263007?
But remember to clean that phone beforehand!

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"Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 12.5 - the best yet!"

There never been a better time to start using this speech recognition solutions. The latest versions gives you the ability to work quicker, more productively and without using a keyboard or mouse. There is a specialist Access to Work (ATW) edition for people who have had assessments via the ATW scheme or wish to use this software to assist with dyslexia or Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI). The medical editions allows doctors and clinicians improve patient care through reduced document turn-around time. The legal edition allows solicitors to become more effective with their time. Learn more...

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