Disability Employment Service
Employing people with disabilities in mainstream jobs in Northern Ireland
Terry Park,
Head of Disability Employment Service,
Department for Employment & Learning
Introduction
Good afternoon. I’d like to thank the National Disability Authority for inviting me to speak here today.
I am looking forward to sharing the following information with you about the disability employments services.
I am going to start by giving you a quick overview of our strategic purposes and business objectives.
Then I’m going to briefly go through two of our prominent mainstream employment programmes – the Access to Work programme and the Workable programme and the impact they have on increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities. I will also give you a snap shot of the supports we provide people with disabilities and employers.
I will conclude my presentation by sharing some recent success stories with you and talking briefly about the Employment Strategy for People withDisabilities that we will be launching in 2016.
Before I begin, I’d like to say that, from a personal perspective, the last six years heading up the disability employment services has been by far the most rewarding part of my career. It's been very challenging at times, but when you get some successes, even small ones, that makes the job worthwhile.
I am aware that Minister Farry, the Minister for Employment and Learning in the Northern Ireland Assembly was here this morning and that he gave one of the opening speeches for this conference. I’d like to mention that a great deal of the successes we have achieved, regarding the employment of people with disabilities, is because of the support he has given us.
Strategic Purposes
The disability employment services, within the Department of Employment and Learning, have two strategic purposes:
- To help people with disabilities progress towards, move into, and remain in paid employment
- To assist and support employers to recruit, retain and promote employees who have disability related barriers to employment.
Business Objectives
I wanted to give you a very brief overview of the business objectives of the disability employments services.
We provide a wide range of services to people with different disabilities.
There are between 35 to 40 staff that work in the disability employment services. They are a mixture of administrative, financial, and programme management teams and specialist disability employment officers. These different teams work together to provide a diverse range of employment services to people with disabilities and employers.
We are always striving to continually improve the quality and range of client interventions.
We engage very closely with key partners in the disability sector to improve the services we provide. They are an invaluable resource and are constantly coming up with innovative and practical ideas on how to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities. They are also the experts regarding what needs to be in place to achieve real employment outcomes for people with disabilities.
We also develop future policy and strategy.Minister Farry mentioned this morning that he launched the public consultation for an Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities just two weeks ago. We have been working on the Strategy for the last two years, so hopefully it will be launched in early 2016.
Mainstream Employment Programmes
At the moment we have a number of mainstream employment programmes that are helping people with disabilities to move into employment and to retain employment.
Between our Access to Work programme, the Workable programme and other programmes, we are currently supporting around 2,000 people with different disabilities to obtain and stay in work.
We have also had a couple of preemployment programmesincluding the Work Connect programmethat we deliver in partnership with the five health trusts north of the border.
We have a dedicated preemployment programme which is delivered by a consortium of seven very strong disability organisations.
Overview of Mainstream Employment Programmes
The Access to Work programme and the Workable programme are the two largest mainstream employment programmes that are run by our Department.
Access to Work Programme
The Access to Work Programme providesdifferent supports to people with disabilities to obtain employment, for example, sign interpreters for people who are deaf, travel supports for people who cannot use public transport etc. Other supports that are provided under this programme include: special aids and equipment and adaptations to premises.
Participant Profile
In 2014, 700 people participated in this programme. The majority of participants (37%)were people with physical disabilities, 30% of participants had a sensory disability and 27% of participants had an intellectual disability.
All of the participants have obtained employment in the public and private sectors in different jobs.
Many of the participants are also working for themselves, for example, we are providing a sign interpreter for a deaf tennis coach who has a long list of clients. We also provide supports to a tree surgeon who was paralysedafter a fall. We pay for a Cherry picker type piece of equipment to allow him to continue in his chosen occupation.
The wide range range of jobs that people have moved into highlights the fact that people with disabilities are as capable as anyone else, provided they are given the right supports.
Workable Programme
The Workable programme in Northern Ireland provides a flexible range of long term supports to assist people with disabilities with high support needs to find and keep work.
The programme is delivered by a range of providers contracted by the Department for Employment and Learning. These organisations have extensive experience of meeting the needs of people with disabilities.
The Workable programme providesperson centred supports to each individual to meet their specific needs. A job coach assists people with disabilities to prepare for and adapt to the needs of the particular job.
This programme also provides employers with supports, including training in disability awareness and reasonable accommodations, to help them employ people with disabilities.
Participant Profile
In 2014, 579 people participated in this programme.
The participant profile for the Workable programme is slightly different to the Access to Work programme. The majority of people on this programme (43%) are people with intellectual disabilities and people with mental health issues (23%).
All of them obtained employment in different positions including positions in the public sector, the hospitality and the retail sectors.
Additional Supports
The disability employment services also provides additional supports to help people with disabilities get employment.
We are supporting 25 dedicated disability employment projects that focus on getting people with disabilities into mainstream employmentthrough the European Social Fund. We have the pleasure of working with some of the very best organisations. Some of these organisations specialise in particular disabilities and others provide a pan disability service to many people throughout the geographical spread of Northern Ireland.
We have our own dedicated occupational psychology service and we provide employment assessments for people with sensory impairments or people with physical disabilities.
We also provide retention services for employers and employees.
We provide employers with training in Positive Action Recruitment Exercises, so that they have the skills, knowledge and confidence to employ people with disabilities.
Recent Success Stories
I wanted to share with you some of the recent success stories we have had. I also wanted to give you a practical example of how we engage with employers and support them to provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
In the past when employers have come to Northern Ireland to opening a new business, they met with the general employment service to discuss the best way to recruit new staff. The general employmentservice informed us about this.
We contacted the employer and asked them how they would feel about ring fencing some interviews for people with disabilities. We worked with our partners in the disability sector to provide these employers with supports and training, so that they had the skills and confidence to interview people with different disabilities.
As we grew more confident, we asked employers to ring fence some jobs for people with disabilities
We have had a number of successful outcomes and this has been a major plus for us in that it has changed the mindset of some employers.
Some of the employees that these companies and these organisations have employed have excelled in their jobs. They were promoted within a relative short space of time, because they brought so much to the organisation that they were working for. Some of the companies and organisations we have worked with include Belfast City Council, Premier Inn and Fitzer’s Catering Company. They all employ people with disabilities.
The Queen’s University Inclusive Employment Scheme is another success story. We worked with our partners in the disability sector and in Queen’s University in Belfast. We developed and ran a recruitment competition called the Queen’s University Inclusive Employment Scheme. At the end of the campaign the University had 12 candidates with different disabilities, 3 of whom they kept on for 12 months. The University is now looking at ways that they can retain these people.
Effective Employer Supports – The Recruitment Model
The recruitment model is an example of the type of effective supports we provide employers. We developed this model with our partners in the disability sector.
The model is implemented using the following steps:
- The chief objective of this model is to engage with the employer. We negotiate and offer as much support as we feel the employer needs, before they employ a person with a disability and during the initial stages of that person’s employment
- The disability organisations work every day with pools of people who are looking to move into employment. They have a preselection process to get people through who have the capacity to move into different jobs.In the Queen’s UniversityInclusive Employment Scheme,there were a number of clerical administrative posts and technical IT positions. We matched people’s interests and their skills to the different positions
- If a person is successful in a job, we immediately engage with our partners in the disability sector to determine the level of support this person needs to stay in the job
I have given you an overview of the strategic purposes and the business objectives of the disability employment services. I have also given you a summary of the employment programmes and the type of supports that we provide people with disabilities and employers.
I would like to conclude this presentation by touching briefly on the steps we are taking to increase employmentopportunities for people with disabilities in the future.
Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities
The disability employment services have been involved in developing the Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities, because we want to build on the progress we have achieved. We also want to strive for even bigger employment outcomes, that's been the driving force from day one.We need to get more people with disabilities into employment coming out of the economic downturn.
There are three key elements to this Employment Strategy:
Supported employment model
The Department of Employment and Learning recognises that the supported employment model is an integral part of the Strategy. It is a mechanism by which people with disabilities, with high support needs, will get the necessary person centred supports that will help them get real jobs.
A clear pathway to employment
We are trying to create a very clear pathway to employment via this Strategy. This pathway starts with young people with disabilities, who are taking part in education, training or other preemployment activity. It’s important that they receive the necessary supports when they are active and motivated, to get them across the employment line. We are trying to stop the next generation of young disabled people from becoming economically inactive or becoming socially excluded.
Employer engagement
A large section of the Strategy also focuses on working with employers, because unless employers are fully engaged and open up the doors of opportunity, then all the pre-employment programmes and the funding that supports these programmes will have been wasted.
How will the Strategy be delivered?
The Department of Employment and Learning will deliver the Strategy by implementing the following key steps:
- Ensure that all the departmental staff receive the appropriate training so that they are disability competent, with appropriate knowledge and skills to support people with disabilities
- Build upon the close working arrangements the Department has with the Careers Service, Further Education colleges, Skills Training programmes, the Employment Service, and other employability projects delivered by the Community and Voluntary sector. These partnerships will provide people with disabilities with joined up supports to help them transition from secondary schools to further education and employment opportunities
- Engage with employers and support them to recruit and employ people with disabilities
- Monitor the implementation of the Strategy, track and report on the progress that is being made on increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities
Other Proposals
The Department of Employment and Learning is also working on developing other proposals in tandem with the Employment Strategy.
We are working on implementing a new ‘Pathway to Employment’, for people with high support needs.
We are examining the feasibility of designing and implementing a disability employment one-stop-shop service for employers.
We will be establishing a network of high profile Disability Advocates/Champions.
We will commission at least one major disability research project per annum
We plan to establish a new, fully inclusive Disability Employment Stakeholder Forum, to monitor the Strategy outcomes and to inform future policy decisions.
Proposed Timelines for the Strategy
We will be running public consultation events in October and November 2015.
We hope to have the final draft of the Strategy completed in January 2016 and to launch the Strategy in March 2016.
I would encourage any of you to have a look at the consultation document and to contribute to the consultation process. It can be accessed on the consultation zone on the Department of Employment's website. Please feel free to email comments to me. I am happy to take those on board.
Thank you very much for inviting me today and it's been a very enjoyable experience.
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