I am a job seeker

You are not alone.  Many professionals can help you: each with their own expertise.

🤝Together: these people need each other to walk the right path with you and find a good solution together.

🚧Challenge: it can be unclear who exactly takes on what role or what you can turn to whom for.

💪Opportunity: Key Players in the Return-to-Work Process:

• Attending Physician/Team at the Hospital or Rehabilitation Center:
  • Establishing your care plan and necessary treatment (e.g., multidisciplinary rehabilitation).
  • Prescribing your disability.
  • Providing information on the impact of your brain injury.
  • Offering back-to-work guidance in a medical report to assist your workplace in evaluating your return or determining necessary support.
  • Collaborating on planning for a potential return to work, considering factors like reduced endurance capacity.

• Advisory Doctor and Return-to-Work Coordinator of the Health Insurance Fund:
  • Assessing your work incapacity and advising on potential return-to-work options or retraining.
  • The return-to-work coordinator facilitates communication among professionals and supports the advisory doctor.

• Employment Services Mediators (e.g., VDAB, GTB, GOB):
  • Assist in returning to your current job or finding new employment.
  • Specialized services like GTB aid individuals with disabilities in securing and maintaining employment.
  • GOB offers job coaching services to facilitate reintegration with employers.

Initiate a 'return-to-work process' through your health insurance provider by arranging an initial meeting with a return-to-work coordinator.This coordinator can assist you in identifying suitable resources to facilitate your reintegration into the workforce.

💡Tip: Visit your health insurance fund's website to schedule an appointment and address any inquiries.

💡Prepare for your return to work with these suggestions:

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of your capabilities and obstacles. Document these for yourself and discuss them with your support network.
• Consider sharing this overview in advance with your treatment team or mediator for additional insight.
• Maintain a folder containing all information related to your brain injury and its impact. This can serve as a reference point and be brought to key appointments with professionals like the occupational doctor, health insurance fund's advisory doctor, or labor mediator.
• Acknowledge that the journey back to work is not straightforward. It involves navigating through the processing and acceptance of the consequences of your brain injury, with the involvement of multiple professionals.

🤝Collaboration: Consider having a companion accompany you to significant meetings, such as those with your employer or occupational doctor. Don't hesitate to seek assistance when needed. Your healthcare provider or loved one can support you by preparing for discussions and attending appointments with you. Having someone who understands and acknowledges your challenges can boost your confidence. Their awareness of how your brain injury impacts your employment process can be beneficial in communicating effectively with others. Effective support ensures that the outcomes of discussions align better with your unique circumstances.

If you aspire to return to work, it's important to recognize that this may not happen naturally.

🚧Challenge: The effects of a brain injury, such as impacting your work speed or quality, can present obstacles.Commencing work directly in a real work setting can be challenging. However, starting in a simulated work environment or one with adjusted working hours or tasks can ease this transition.

🤝Collaboration: Specialized Team Mediation (GTB) mediators can assist you in navigating this process.

💪Opportunity:

• Working part-time may entitle you to a disability benefit from the health insurance fund in addition to your part-time earnings.
• Unemployed individuals starting part-time work may qualify for an income guarantee benefit from the National Employment Office (RVA) under specific conditions.

🔀Various avenues for entering the workforce include:

• Volunteering, which is a productive use of your time and helps assess your capabilities.
• Adapted work tailored to your health condition.
  • 🤝Collaboration: Approval from the health insurance fund's advising doctor and occupational physician is necessary for the nature, volume, and conditions of adapted work.
• Engaging in a back-to-work process supported by a coordinator from your health insurance fund or GTB if back-to-work coordinators are limited.
• Pursuing independent activities offers flexibility, self-paced tasks, and personalized working hours.
  • 🚧Challenge: Maintaining boundaries is crucial in this scenario.
  • 🤝Collaboration: To explore the feasibility of independent activities with your brain injury, consider initiating a Z2O program through GTB.

• What are the advantages of volunteering?
  • Engaging in volunteer work can help you explore and understand your capabilities and limitations.
  • It is a meaningful use of your free time and can complement your job search efforts.
  • Volunteering provides insights into how your brain injury may affect your employment prospects.
  • Additionally, it offers the benefits of structured weekly activities, social interactions, community involvement, and a sense of purpose. Volunteering can serve as a pathway to paid employment or be a fulfilling activity in itself.Where can you volunteer?

• If you are seeking employment, consider volunteering at non-profit organizations or public services like libraries, municipalities, or social welfare centers. Who is eligible for voluntary work?
  • During your vocational integration period, you can volunteer while remaining available for job opportunities.
  • This includes actively seeking work, being ready to accept suitable job offers or training from your employment mediator, and fulfilling agreements with them.
  • If you receive unemployment benefits, you must inform the relevant authorities beforehand and obtain permission to volunteer.

• What preparations are necessary before starting volunteer work?
  • Before commencing volunteer activities, inform the appropriate institution (such as the Auxiliary Fund for Unemployment Benefit or your union) and complete form C45B.
  • Collaborate with the volunteering organization to fill out this form.
  • Notify the institution if there are any changes in the frequency or nature of your volunteering.
  • If RVA denies or limits your volunteering, adhere to their decision promptly. Some organizations may have general permissions for volunteering, so inquire with them directly. You do not need to seek approval from VDAB or RVA for volunteering unless specified otherwise. Consult with your VDAB or GTB mediator to ensure that volunteering aligns with your overall goals and job search efforts.

Yes.

Returning to work, due to the invisible effects of a brain injury, is often a complex process.

🤝Together:

If you experience difficulty finding work because of your brain injury, you can seek support from VDAB.
You can get specialised help to support you in your job search, such as GTB.
GTB, Specialised Team Mediation, supports jobseekers with a disability or health problem to find and keep suitable work.
The GTB mediator takes your brain injury into account and identifies your options.

How can you turn to GTB?

• First register as a jobseeker with VDAB.
• A VDAB counsellor will contact you and refer you to GTB.
• You can also ask to be supported by GTB yourself.
  • A GTB mediator supports you in various ways, such as by looking for suitable training, giving you job interview training or looking for a suitable work placement.
• Ask your reintegration coach from the treatment team to make an appointment directly with a GTB mediator in your area.
• In the workplace itself, job coaches from Specialised Training, Guidance and Mediation Services (GOB) can support you and your new employer.
  • For example, they can map out in detail how to adapt the workplace, if necessary, what support from whom might be valuable and how to plan your tasks.
• Together with you, the job coach can detect obstacles, train certain skills step by step, inform your new colleagues ... .

The health insurance fund's advisory doctor undertakes various responsibilities, including evaluation, education, and guidance.

The advisory doctor evaluates your eligibility for incapacity benefits by assessing if you meet the criteria for incapacity for work.

• This assessment involves reviewing your medical history, functional abilities, and anticipated recovery trajectory.
• Additionally, the doctor educates you on the implications of your brain injury.
• Furthermore, the advisory doctor provides guidance on reentering the workforce and determines if a return-to-work plan aligns with your medical condition.
  • For instance, they may recommend a gradual return to work with modified duties or direct you to a return-to-work coordinator for a structured reintegration process.

Legislation: The return-to-work process is governed by specific regulations to facilitate a smooth transition back to work.

If you are an unemployed person starting work in a part-time job, you can get an additional benefit from the National Employment Office (NEO) on top of your part-time net wage under certain conditions. This is called an income guarantee benefit.

💰Benefit: If you suffer a brain injury as a jobseeker, it is best to apply for disability benefits from your health insurance fund. Otherwise, the VDAB will call you for job applications. If you have such an occupational disability benefit through your health insurance fund, you can receive a part-time net wage on top of this part-time benefit. You are entitled to unemployment benefit if, in the period before you became unemployed, you worked a certain number of working days as an employee. The amount of unemployment benefit depends on the wages you earned when you worked. your family situation (living alone, cohabiting with/without family). your professional history. Fully unemployed people receive 65% of their last earned wages during the first three months of unemployment. During the next nine months, they receive 60% of their last earned wages. In principle, your benefit is determined for an unlimited duration.

⚠️Note: Benefits are subject to withholding tax.

It is important to think about whether you will disclose that you have a brain injury prior to the job interview, how it will affect your functioning and how they can support you.

• If you assess that the invisible consequences of your brain injury affect your functioning in the workplace, it may be important to name this in the interview.
• If you want to name these invisible consequences, prepare how you will explain them. It is important to name that living with brain injury requires a lot of energy and performed tasks generally take more energy.
• Also think about how they can support you. For example, you can share why you eat alone in a low-pressure environment in the afternoon instead of together with colleagues.

🚧Challenge: if your brain injury has no visible effects, your new employer may not be able to immediately deduce whether you have a brain injury.

💪Opportunity: we recommend explaining succinctly what the brain injury entails and, above all, dwelling on why that work is appropriate for you and you are a suitable candidate.

🤝Together: mediators from GTB can guide you through this. When you name invisible consequences, you create support among your employer, your manager and your colleagues. You create understanding for the difficulties you experience. A downside could be that this negatively affects your chances of employment.

💰Support: if, because of the brain injury, you are entitled to employment support measures or are co-followed by a GTB mediator, you can share this on your CV or cover letter. Then keep in mind that the employer will ask a question about this. You may indicate when you have questions about your health condition that you prefer to discuss it with the employment doctor.

💡Tip: go through this VDAB brochure before you go on a job interview.

It is important to think about this beforehand, before effectively returning to the workplace.

Each brain injury has unique consequences and can make itself felt differently in the workplace.

You are under no obligation to talk about your health or illness history. For example, you should not tell people you have a brain injury.

Sharing information about your brain injury with your colleagues can help you understand  why you have to work half-days, for example, or why you eat alone in a low-pressure environment in the afternoon instead of together with colleagues.

• It is important to name that living with brain injury requires a lot of energy and performed tasks generally take more energy.
  • You can explain this using a metaphor.
  • For instance, you can make the comparison with a battery that is no longer fully charged due to the brain injury, charging more slowly and also draining faster when performing tasks.
  • Another metaphor you can use is a box of crayons or a slide of spoons, taking one or more crayons/spoons from the box with each task you perform. The box of crayons/spoons then symbolises the energy you have per day.

🚧Challenge: in theory it sounds easy, but in practice it is often a fine line between what you do and don't say.

• Also consider emotional and behavioural changes.
• Maybe you are disinhibited, anxious, rigid, more irritable ... .
• This can cause annoyance and helplessness in you and your colleagues/leadership.

💪Opportunity:  it is best to talk these changes through thoroughly.

Therefore, think carefully beforehand about what exactly you want to share, with whom you want to share it and how you want to share it.
For example, explain verbally to your immediate colleague that you have a brain injury, what impact it has on you and on your work, and how your colleague can support you. Your direct colleague is thus your confidant or your colleague mentor in the workplace.
You can also send a less detailed e-mail to your colleagues writing that you are back and what tasks you will pick up.

🚧Challenge: some individuals with a brain injury have impaired disease insight and therefore have a poorer view themselves of what has changed and is more difficult for them.

This can create tensions with colleagues and often requires support in the workplace.

💪Opportunity: professionals can support you

• Beforehand, the treatment team or mediator work can support you and prepare and rehearse such a conversation with you.
  • If you have been able to talk about it several times, you will find a way to talk about your brain injury that suits you
• In the workplace itself, job coaches from Specialised Training, Guidance and Mediation Services (GOB) can support you and your new employer.
  • For example, they can map out in detail how to adapt the workplace, if necessary, what support from whom might be valuable and how to plan your tasks.
  • The job coach can detect challenges together with you, train certain skills step by step, inform your new colleagues ... .

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