Council work makes Megan feel first class MEGAN Ratcliffe used to feel like "a second class citizen".

But, thanks to the New Deal For Disabled People scheme being piloted in Bolton, she feels like a valued member of the workforce.

The 42-year-old from Tonge Fold has just started a placement at the Quest Centre "One Stop Job Shop" on Brownlow Way - her first time back at the workplace in two years.

The scheme Megan is on offers disabled people 26 weeks' training for a recognised qualification and work experience within Bolton council.

Skills

No extra jobs are created by the New Deal, but partakers are encouraged to apply for jobs within and outside Bolton Metro, and taught job search skills. They are allowed to keep benefits and receive expenses.

For Megan, who has always worked since she was 15, the scheme has been a life-saver. And she is determined to find a permanent, paid job, at the end of it.

"They have made me feel really welcome from the first day," Megan said. "They have involved me as much as they possibly could. It gives me something to get up for in the morning."

When Megan lost her job and felt unable to find another one, she got so depressed she needed counselling.

"You feel you are on the scrap heap at 40, " said Megan. "You feel as though there are no doors open for you, it's soul destroying.

"I just don't want to sit at home and vegetate - it's like being back in the real world now.

"It's better than watching 'the box' in the corner of the room all day."

It was Christmas Eve when the phone call came to say she had been successful in securing a New Deal position.

"I got very emotional. It was the best Christmas present I could have had."

The mother of an 18-year-old daughter worked for a supermarket in Breightmet for 10 years, until PVNS - a rare condition which causes benign tumours to recur in her knee - got the better of her.

Although Megan's body is now affected from the waist down, and the condition has started to move up her spine, she manages to catch a bus to work on some days. Other days she catches a taxi.

"I fight against it," she said. "People have a very fixed view about disabled people.

"They don't appreciate there are a lot of different degrees of disability - they think it's mental rather than physical. Schemes like this shows that we can be valuable members of the workplace.

"When I have looked for jobs, I have felt like a second class citizen - but I just needed a chance. It's opportunities like these that people like me need."

So far Megan has been involved in doing work on the computer and dealing with telephone queries.

"I worked in an office when I first left school, but technology has changed so much. From selling cigarettes to offering training schemes, you can't get any different, can you?"

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