What is JobAccess?
JobAccess helps people with disability or employers, service providers and the community to access information about services, financial assistance and workplace solutions.
Part of its portfolio is The Employment Assistance Fund. This fund helps people with disability and mental health condition. It provides financial assistance for the purchase of a range of work related modifications and services for people who are about to start a job or who are currently working, as well as those who require assistance to find and prepare for work.
It was Michelle (Austin Health Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre) that introduced me to Dragon voice activated software. I took to Dragon like a duck to water with the help of Jess (Occupational Therapist at Austin Health). Michelle then suggested I may be able to get funding for Dragon and EyeTech through The Employment Assistance Fund, enabling me to return to work, even if this was only part-time at the start.
We made an application for funding. Sue and I and Michelle then met with a JobAccess assessor. We discussed what work I would do. How the technology would help.
I think it’s fair to say he was also assessing my ability to do the work I proposed. Anyway, I got the tick of approval from the assessor. My application was approved and within a matter of a few weeks the technology-both hardware and software-had arrived and I was in business!
JobAccess provided the funds to get me back to work. But it did more than that for me. Their confidence in me was a great boost to my morale. The people at JobAccess looked beyond my obvious physical limitations. They recognised my genuine desire to do productive work again. And, in some ways, that was just as important as the money itself.





