Our Employment Webinar answers your questions about work and MS.
For this webinar we welcomed 2 guest speakers with expertise around employment.

About our speakers:
Joanne Hurford, BSc (Hons), MSc, is a clinical specialist occupational therapist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She has worked at NHNN since 2000, providing therapy and rehabilitation at different parts of the patient pathway and has specialised in Neurological Vocational Rehabilitation since 2013. She is passionate about working with people with long-term conditions and enabling them to fulfil their potential in their work and everyday lives. Joanne is also on the National Executive Committee for The Royal College for Occupational Therapists (RCOT) Specialist section for work.

Dr Blanca De Dios Pérez is a Senior Research Fellow in Psychology at the Centre for Rehabilitation and Ageing Research, within the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham. Dr De Dios pursued a bachelor’s degree in Psychology (specialisation in Neuropsychology) in Madrid, Spain before moving to the United Kingdom to pursue further education and a career in academia. Her research at the University of Manchester involved collaborations on a range of projects aiming to understand cognition and language deficits in people with MS. Her current work, leading from her PhD at the University of Nottingham largely focuses on developing vocational rehabilitation interventions for people with MS, with a focus on supporting job retention.

What is covered in the webinar?
Value of Work
Introduction to MS, symptoms, and experiences of people with MS at work
Support with employment for newly diagnosed people with MS (covering reasonable adjustments, disclosure, legal rights, etc)
Overview of a job retention intervention for people with MS
Q&A session