We Can Work It Out

Northamptonshire Learning Disability Partnership Board

Andy Horwood29th March 2012

Valuing Employment Now says• The Big Goal

• By 2025 we want more people with learning disabilities to have a job. We want these jobs to be 16 hours a week. At the moment only a very small number of people with learning disabilities have a job.

The Employment Plan - 1

• More young people will leave school or college and get a paid job or voluntary work

• We said

We did...

• We talked with Further Education colleges to ask them to keep a list of where young people go when they finish their Essential Skills courses.

• This will tell us how many people are getting a job or voluntary work

• We asked Connexions to start keeping a list of employers who are good at working with disabled young people

• We are working with Leicester to have Single Assessment process. This means that young people will only have to have one assessment that everybody can look at.

• The single assessment is the work we are doing as we are part of a Government Pathfinder project.

• The assessment should be ready in the Summer of this year

• One assessment should mean that young people’s ideas and hopes about

work will be known by everybody.

• Inspire Me which is a national Mencap project is being run in local schools.

• Friars school

• Isebrook SEN college

• Northgate school (sixth form only).

• This will help young people think about what they want to do in the future about work and jobs.

The Employment Plan - 2

• 5 more people will use their personal budget to buy employment support or to set up a business

• We said

We did

• Worked with Care Management and 3 people who wanted and needed support to get work or work skills

• We have talked about the kinds of things the people wanted to achieve.

• Some of the things people wanted were:

• Finding out about money and benefits

• Help with learning how to use buses

• Training and support in a job

• We have used the Partnership Board money to give people Personal Budgets to do this

• This work has only just started so we cannot tell you at the moment if these things were achieved but the We Can Work It Out group will check.

• We hope to do some more of this, using the Partnership Board money to make it happen.

The Employment Plan - 3

• 40 more staff will have had Training in Systematic Instruction (TSI) to help them learn new skills. TSI is a way of helping people to learn new skills

• We said

• We have only run one course for 12 people.

• The course was in February 2012 and we are waiting to hear what people thought of it.

• We had to work hard to fill the places and so we will not be putting on any more courses

• 40 people won’t be trained

The Employment Plan - 4

• There will be a “pathway” for employment that is written down. This will tell people what should happen to help them get a job. There will also be better information to make sure that people understand the pathway

• We said

We did• We have had 4 meetings and have

got all of the information we need for a “Benefits Pathway “and an ‘Employment pathway’

• The pathways will be written and drawn soon and will be sent to a mix of people to check if they are OK

• Leicestershire have also been working on this so we will look at their work too

• Northamptonshire were part of a government project last year to help people get jobs. It was called Jobs First.

• We have been talking to Remploy and the Kings College in London to help them write a report about Jobs First and how well it has done to help people get jobs.

• When the report is finished we will put it on the Partnership Board website

The Employment Plan - 5

• 2 more public organisations like councils and NHS will have easy read information and forms to help people found out and apply for jobs

• We said

We did• Northampton Borough Council

and Northamptonshire County Council are looking at ‘job carving’

• Job carving can be used to change a job so that it is suitable for a particular worker

• Kettering General Hospital are also hoping to have some jobs that are for people with a learning disability to apply for and they will be advertised soon.

• They are changing their job descriptions and forms so it easier for people to apply for the jobs

• The Partnership Board has also brought together different ideas about Learning Disability awareness training

• We now have one pack that can be used by everybody to help run this training in different places

• Elaine Cummins has run a train the trainers course for this

• There are people with a learning disability and others who know how to use the pack.

• The pack can be changed so it works for whoever you are training.

• This should help more people in public organisations feel good about supporting a worker with learning disability

• Public organisations in Northamptonshire also have a new website where they advertise their jobs

https://www.everyroadleadstous.co.uk

• Any questions?

• Your ideas......• We would like to know your ideas

so could you please talk in groups and tell us:

?

1. How can we better prepare young people (and their families) for the world of work?

2. What would help you to get a job?

• We will ask each group to feedback 2 ideas.

Thank you