Our thoughts on Think Work First- the new House of Lords report
We explore the new House of Lords report and how it relates to the transition into employment from higher education for disabled people.
We know that for too many young disabled people making the move into employment from higher or further education can be far from smooth. Too often careers guidance ignores the aspirations and needs of young disabled people. Application and interview processes can be inaccessible for some and persistent barriers to inclusive employment still exist in many workplaces. All these factors contribute to the current disability employment gap (the difference in employment rates of disabled people and people who are not disabled) of 22 percentage points for those aged 18-24.
Removing employment barriers for disabled people
Our employment programmes aim to address the challenges disabled people may face, help tackle this persistent gap and improve the move into work for young disabled people. Since 2013 Leonard Cheshire’s Change 100 professional development programme has connected hundreds of disabled students and graduates with some of the UK’s best-known employers, through paid summer internships. Through internship support and tailored training, we ensure these paid internships, often young disabled people's first experience in the workplace, provide them with positive experiences.
That’s why we welcomed the announcement from the House of Lords Public Services Committee last Autumn that they would be launching an inquiry looking at young disabled people’s experiences of the transition from education to employment. During this inquiry, we supported the Committee’s work as our Head of Advocacy Amy Little gave evidence to the Committee members and alumni from our Change 100 programme shared their experiences of moving into work from education over several engagement sessions.
In sixth form the advice I was given wasn’t that specific. Our adviser was a teacher who also taught history who was a very nice person but didn’t have specialist knowledge when it came to something like disability
Change 100 intern
Report reflections
This week the Committee has published its report, Think Work First: The transition from education to work for young disabled people. We are pleased the report reflects many of the concerns we, and the young people we work with, had raised about the barriers to employment as well as some positive suggestions of steps that can be made to improve transitions into work. We hope the new government will take the Committee’s recommendations on board as part of its stated commitment to support more disabled people to enter and stay in work.
Overall, the report makes 36 recommendations for the new Government. We’ve picked out our top three that we think could really begin to move the dial on inclusive employment and help smooth that transition from education to employment.
Improving transparency on the Access to Work backlog and wait-times:
Receiving funding for special equipment or adaptations through Access to Work can mean young disabled people are set up to succeed from day one, yet too many are waiting for this vital support. The backlog was as high as 36,000 this May. Hopefully if the Government commit to reporting on the Access to Work backlog, as the Committee recommends, this will act as a push to drive wait times down.
Specific training for Disability Employment Advisors (DEAs):
The Committee recommends that DEAs receive training to best understand the specific barriers young disabled people face. These advisers can play an important role in assisting young disabled people to find and secure good-quality accessible employment, but need better guidance on what this looks like and how to identify barriers that many may face in trying to secure work.
Increase the number of supported internships:
As we know from our work with young disabled people and employers through Change 100, high quality supported internships can be a gamechanger when it comes to the transition between education and employment. As such we were delighted to see the Committee recommend the new government set an ambitious target to increase the number of supported internships on offer to young disabled people.