"We can't scare people into work", Why Welfare Seminars miss the point... / A.J. Hendry

We need to rethink our response to "Welfare Reform"...

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

I'm a big believer in the idea that when you have a challenge you need to overcome, the first step forward is to understand what is going on.

The second, having now understood the issue, is to respond to the thing that is happening.

Recently, the Government announced a compulsory work seminar for people in need of financial support from the Ministry of Social Development. This seminar would take place within two weeks of a person having access to the benefit, and if people don't attend, they will face sanctions.

It was billed as a "practical and sensible" measure that would support people off the benefit and into work.

The Government has been clear, their priority is to get people into work, and to reduce the number of people who are in need of support from MSD.

And so, if that is the goal, the first question is, why? Why are people needing support, and why are they accessing the Job Seeker in the first place?

Well, there isn't one answer, some people are really unwell (physically or mentally) and aren't able to secure paid employment. It's important to recognize that most of these people do work in our communities, just no one pays them. Whether that is volunteering in the community, providing care for whānau, parenting, it's all important and valuable mahi that our communities rely on and that financially speaking can be hard for us to quantify the impact.

Another reason some people may require access to the Job Seeker is because they're between jobs, they know what they need to gain employment, they're doing it, and they just need the space to sort some things out.

There will be many of us that can empathise with this experience.

And there are others that have really complex and traumatic things happening in their lives. Some have disabilities but aren't eligible for disability support, some have chronic mental health challenges, some are literally experiencing homelessness, or suffering due to trauma, or just don't have the support they need to find meaningful employment.

Everyone's situation is complex and individualised.

If we truly want to support people who can enter paid employment to do so, than we need to build a system that is able to adequately respond to and meet the needs of people's individual situations.

We also need to acknowledge that some people can't enter paid employment, either now or in the future, and find ways to honour the important value these people do provide our communities.

Work seminars may be good for some, but for other's they won't be helpful, they will be a barrier and will likely result in sanctions for very vulnerable people - including young people - who aren't able to communicate their needs with MSD due to the traumatic and chaotic situation they are in. In these situations, we may actually see the policy do more harm than good to some people.

Something that is important to understand is that we do currently have a model for how we can do things better. MSD's Youth Services was set up to create a way for young people to receive support from MSD without ever needing to go into Work and Income. It provides a Youth Worker to a young person, and the intention is to provide more intensive wrap around support for young people in need of financial support.

Now, the service is not perfect, its underfunded, the youth workers doing the mahi are over worked with caseloads too high to manage the complex needs of the young people accessing the service.

However, it does provide a model that could be utilized for reforming the entire system.

Imagine providing everyone in need of support from MSD a key worker, social worker or youth worker whose role was to advocate for them, support them, and who could understand their needs and ensure they received the support they required.

This would humanize the system, and ensure people received tailored, practical support, that adequately responded to their individual needs.

It would need to be funded well, and the system would need to be designed with the community and those with lived experience of the system, however there is potential here to build a system that does more than attempting to scare people into work.

If we want to heal our communities and help out people to thrive, we need to first understand what people are going through and respond accordingly.

As we continue to have this conversation about our welfare system, I would encourage us all to reflect. If you were in that situation, if you ever needed support, what sort of system would you want? What would you need? And how would you build the system to meet your needs?

As we discovered during Covid, we're all one crisis away from needing access to our social safety net. If we wouldn't something for ourselves and our own whānau, why would we advocate for it for others?

#LoveIsTheWay

A.J. Hendry is a Laidlaw College graduate, and a Youth Development Worker and rangatahi advocate, working in the Youth Housing and Homelessness space. He leads Kick Back, a service supporting rangatahi experiencing homelessness and is also an advocate working collectively to end youth homelessness in Aotearoa. He is also the curator and creator of When Lambs Are Silent.