Should Ex-Offenders be sent to “regular” FND Providers, and, perhaps more importantly – should other Clients be informed?

Towards the start of last week, I started to notice I was getting visitors “referred” to the blog, from a site I’m somewhat familiar with already, due to researching A4e, called  WatchingA4e. It turns out the person running the site was nice enough to include my site on the list of “Interesting sites”, on the right of the page, and as a result, people were clicking through, and stumbling upon the site. So by co-incidence, after my second FND meeting at A4e, I popped into a local library, to check my e-mail, and by chance I accessed the site, and noticed that as well as a link to my site on the sidebar, there was also a comment about my site, and a link through (again, many, many thanks). What interested me, however, and what’s ultimately inspired this particular post, were the comments posted in reply, by a person called Jack…

Quick Post: Flexible New Deal “User guide” from the DWP.

Some encouraging news for people who have been placed on FND – the mythical “Flexible New Deal” booklet has finally surfaced. During my initial interview with the JCP, I was told that such a booklet was available, but that it was currently only available for staff. However, it’s now available online, so if your Jobcentre “Advisor” hasn’t given you a copy, head over to the following link, where you can read it:

Flexible New Deal: What You can expect and what we expect from you (FND1 10/09) [Via Flexible-New-Deal.co.uk]

Having looked through the content, it seems identical to the version I was able to quickly browse through at the JCP, other than the date (the version I read was dated 09/09)

A4e – Second Interview, Online Assessments, and seemingly hitting a brickwall.

The first of 4 planned posts, before my next appointment with A4e – this one talks about my second interview, the A4e Online Assessment tool, and the feeling of seemingly hitting a brickwall. Originally I’d hoped to have all 4 posts / articles online by today, however I twisted my ankle over the weekend (It’s my own fault for going running while it was raining), so I’m taking things a bit easy, until it’s fully back to normal. Anyway, that’s enough of my offline difficulties – onto the topic at hand.

Tuesday saw me up nice and early, so that I could fit in my morning run, before heading out for my appointment with A4e. Following on from my first interview with my “Career Coach” I’d been set two seemingly simple tasks – bring in a copy of my CV, and complete an initial assessment, through the A4e Website. Sounds simple enough…