Employment and Learning Disabilities

Research reinforces the value of work; those who have experienced unemployment will know only too well how this led to feelings and indeed being excluded and marginalised, low self-esteem, social, financial and psychological problems. This is a particular issue for people with Learning Disabilities. The employment statistics (2009) reveal an employment rate for people with Physical Disabilities of 48% and of 7.5% for people with Learning Disabilities.

Employers have a duty under the Disability Discrimination Act to make reasonable adjustments to prevent a disabled employee from being placed at a substantial disadvantage by any physical feature of the premises or by provision criteria or practice of the employer – this includes people with Learning Disabilities.

This course, designed for front line workers aims to help them understand the impact of work on the individual and particularly those with Learning Disabilities, barriers to overcome in supporting people to gain employment, supporting them to prepare for work and through the process of seeking and gaining employment. The course will relate to 'Valuing Employment Now' 'Real jobs for people with Learning Disabilities' launched by the Government in June last year which sets out an ambitious goal to radically increase the number of people with Learning Disabilities in paid employment.

The course certificate will evidence learning for those who wish to achieve accredited Awards.

Learning objectives:

By the end of the course learners should understand:

• What is ‘work’?
• Why do we work?
• What do we get out of working?
• How does not working impact on the individual?
• What do people with Learning Disabilities have to gain by being in employment?
• Statistics-Why are so few people with Learning disabilities employed?
        -lack of awareness of Learning Disabilities
        -low expectations of the person
        -low expectations of others
        -being unseen/less obvious
        -practical solutions less obvious
        -no high profile campaigns
        -fear of the employer
        -money
        -health &safety-organisations' fears
• Other barriers:
        -Over-protectiveness
        -Lack of confidence
        -Travel and cost
        -Attitudes
        -Tokenism
• Legislation – The Disability Discrimination Act and The Disability Equality Duty:
        -Recruitment & Selection
        -Conditions of employment
        -Training
        -Transfer
        -Career Development and retention
• Finding out about jobs and working
        -What’s out there?
        -Where is this information?
        -Accessibility of the information
• Application Forms
• Empowering the person to access employment including confidence building & Assertiveness training
• Resources:
        -Agencies specifically set up to work with people with learning disabilities (funded with target numbers of people to be placed into employment and with support element built into this funding).
        -Training and development – accessing work preparation programmes specifically for people with learning disabilities or providing support for the person to attend courses with other people seeking employment.
        -Providing information about what is out there – choice and opportunity,
• Building skills profiles with people to find out what they are interested in, experienced at and what they would be good at.
• Practical support with things such as travel, training and time management.
• Job coaching
• Challenging jargon and making information accessible.
• Creative approaches – interactive CV’s, work trials instead of interviews.
• Workers’ role in advocacy and positive promotion
• Empowering the Organisation:
        -Creating a culture where the organisation can make mistakes and ask for advice and support.
        -Being realistic about reasonable adjustments and time.
        -Providing support for the person – job coaching, trials, skills teaching
        -Promoting a diverse workforce.
• People with Learning Disabilities are customers too - The spending power of people with disabilities in the UK is around £80 billion pounds per annum
• Public image

Training methods:

• Tutor presentations
• PowerPoint/OHP
• Chalk & talk
• Ideas shower
• Pairs, triads and small group work
• Handouts
• Sample documents
• Case studies

CP00/0.0