Employment assistance for job seekers with drug and/or alcohol conditions 001-02230060

Job seekers who have a drug and/or alcohol condition may not be suitable for employment services such as Disability Employment Services (DES) and Workforce Australia.

In some cases, the employment assistance service provider may decide that a started referral or current placement is not suitable for the customer, and ask for a new assessment to be made. Any reassessment process is generally undertaken by Assessment Services.

Information about drug and/or alcohol conditions may be disclosed by the job seeker, or become evident at any time during the assessment and referral process. For example:

• From medical information provided by the job seeker or discussed by the job seeker during a Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI) interview as a potential barrier to finding and sustaining suitable employment. Where a job seeker identifies as having a drug and/or alcohol condition that is a potential barrier to finding and sustaining suitable employment, the JSCI will trigger an Employment Services Assessment (ESAt)
• From information available to the Assessor either already on the job seeker's record (for example, disclosed during the JSCI), or disclosed by the job seeker to the Assessor
• New information about a job seeker's circumstances may be disclosed, or become apparent to a provider after the referral is made. This new information may only now be available for the first time, and so may not have been taken into account in previous assessments, such as the JSCI, or the ESAt report. In some cases the circumstances may have been disclosed or apparent, but the provider may have a different opinion about the impact of the drug and/or alcohol conditions on the job seeker's capacity to benefit from the service to which they have been referred

Where a job seeker with a drug and/or alcohol condition is referred to an employment service and the referral is accepted by the service as appropriate, normal processes apply. If the employment assistance service provider believes the job seeker will not benefit from the service because they have a drug and/or alcohol condition, further reassessment and re-referral action may be required.

If the job seeker was referred to the employment assistance service provider by an Assessor, the service provider has 28 days to contact the Assessor to dispute the referral.

Where the referral is disputed within 28 days of the date of assessment, the Assessor will reconsider whether the referral was appropriate, and may decide to change the assistance recommendation to a different service. If the Assessor decides that referral to another type of service is more appropriate, they will update the existing report.

The service provider will record a change in circumstances where appropriate in the Job Seeker Snapshot and refer the customer for an Employment Services Assessment (ESAt) if one of the following applies:

• The referral is disputed by the employment assistance service provider more than 28 days after the date of assessment by the Assessor
• The referral to the provider was not made by an Assessor and was made on the basis of a current and valid assessment of the customer's work capacity

Where possible, the customer will be referred back to the same Assessor who completed the original assessment. If the Assessor decides that another type of service is more appropriate, they will indicate this in the ESAt report.

If other funded employment assistance services are not considered suitable for the customer, the Assessor should examine other disability employment assistance services referral options and state government or community options that may be available.

This may include organisations that offer drug rehabilitation or counselling. A suitable time in the future should be discussed with the customer to contact them again about employment assistance.