Youth Futures Foundation - Written evidence (YDP0044)

About Youth Futures Foundation

Youth Futures Foundation is the national What Works Centre for youth employment. We want employment gaps to be reduced so that young people facing the greatest challenges can find and keep good quality jobs.  We work with a wide range of partners to drive long-term systemic change.

Youth Futures is submitting evidence to this important inquiry as our research and work with young people show that young people with disabilities face significant challenges when accessing good quality employment. We will focus on young people with learning disabilities and autistic young people within our response, as although these groups of young people are not the same, have a wide range of experiences and require varying needs of support, in the context of employment support and the barriers they face, there are similar overlaps within this that make it beneficial to be discussed together in this context.

What barriers do young disabled people face when leaving education and entering the job market and workplace? Does this differ between different conditions or disabilities, and if so, how?

Young people with disabilities can face significant barriers that are multi-layered and multi-faceted when entering the job market. Data shows just 26.2% of adults with severe or specific learning difficulties are in employment, compared to 80% of adults with no disabilities[1].

In June this year we held a workshop focusing on navigating employment for young people with learning disabilities and autism with one of our Connected Futures partnerships. Connected Futures is our flagship programme supporting place based partnerships to foster systems change. The workshop was held in Chesterfield, allowing young people to share their first-hand experiences of navigating the employment system.

The young people shared they felt there were a lack of options for those with learning disabilities and autism, which starts within their education and has a direct impact on their ability to find good work. The young people shared that they had finished school with few or no GCSEs, which limited what they were able to do in the future. This is supported by wider data – young people with learning difficulties or disabilities have significantly lower attainment in GCSEs, with 32.2% achieving at least a grade 4 in GSCE English and Maths in 2022, compared to 75.8% of pupils with no special educational needs[2].

The young people also shared that the barrier of educational attainment is compounded by there being few employment options available to them in the first place, meaning that finding any sort of employment can be a challenge. This meant the young people often had to take a certain pathway because it’s the only option available to them, creating lack of agency and meaning they can end up struggling to find employment, particularly employment in something they want to do.

When young people with severe or specific learning difficulties do find paid work, they are earning 29.7% less than non-disabled people and this pay gap rises to 33.5% for employees with autism[3].

We have not focused this inquiry specifically on the experiences of young people with an Education, Health, and Care plan when they leave education and enter employment. What are your thoughts on this approach, and are there particular benefits or drawbacks to it? What other focused approaches could the inquiry take?

We agree that the inquiry should not be focusing specifically on experiences of young people with an EHCP only, but looking wider at young people with disabilities. Many young people with extra needs may not have an EHCP, with data showing 17.3% of school pupils in England have SEND – a total of more than 1.5 million, of whom only 389,000 have an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

That said, we are concerned that employment rates adults with learning disabilities (who are receiving long-term support because of their learning disability) is just 4.8%[4]. This indicates a need for some attention to be paid to the specific support for and experiences of those young people receiving the most support as they transition into adulthood.

How effective are government programmes which support or encourage employers to employ disabled people, particularly young disabled people? Does this differ by condition or disability? How could they be improved?

Through our research as a What Works Centre, we have found key interventions with robust evidence that works to help young people with disabilities and autism into work.

We have found that supported internships are impactful. They provide a structured 6–12-month study programme for 16 to 24-year-olds with a learning difficulty. The aim of the supported internship is to ensure the majority of the learning takes place in the workplace, and is tailored to the individual needs of the young person so they are equipped with the skills they need for the role and can go on to long-term good employment. Research by the Department for Education in 2013 found that 75% of participants on a supported internship went on to paid employment (including apprenticeships), voluntary work or progressed to further education or training following a supported internship[5].

This has been supported by a 2019 US study of the ‘Project SEARCH’ programme, which provided 9-month supported internships for young people with a learning disability or autism in their final year, transitioning from education to employment. This led to more individuals gaining competitive employment (87.5% of participants, compared to 6.25% of individuals receiving services according to their Individualised Education Plans (US equivalent of EHCP’s)), higher wages and fewer intervention hours (80.64 hours compared to 184 hours) required to secure a job[6].

Given connections between supported internships and supported employment as a wider concept, (where individuals are assisted with obtaining and maintaining employment though a ‘place, train and maintain’ model) they can also be effective. Here, placement in a job is being seen as the first step, followed by successful training by a skilled job trainer or job coach. It produces better employment outcomes than traditional vocational rehabilitation programmes for individuals with autism, with one the study finding 87% of individuals maintained employment at 12 months post-graduation (compared to 12% in the control group)[7]. Again this has been supported by research from the US, which found that supported employment leads to approximately double the hourly pay rates than ‘sheltered workshops’ and higher net wages than other more restrictive day care environments[8].

Within supported employment, the role of a ‘job coach’ or personal advisor is thought to be critical to the success of the schemes, ensuring close links with employers and the availability of structured long-term support whilst in work[9]. Alongside this, studies have also found that due to the heterogeneous nature of learning disabilities and the wide range of issues that these young people can face in entering and retaining good jobs, the personalisation of service delivery is also crucial[10].

A variant of supported employment that may be effective is Indivdualised Placement and Support (IPS), which is typically used to support young people and adults with mental health conditions but can be effective for those with learning disabilities and autism. One study of 280 young people in the US reported an average employment rate of 36% as a result of IPS[11]. Similarly, a small study of adults with autism found that IPS led to increased employment and earning along with wider social benefits[12].

Providing work experience placements, while a pupil with learning disabilities is still in school, may also offer a promising route, showing value in the focus on workplace transitions to improving their employment outcomes[13].Additionally, Youth Futures Foundation’s Youth Employment Toolkit[14] identifies that vocational training (including particularly on-the-job training programmes and apprenticeships) is likely to have a particularly high impact on employment outcomes for young people with additional barriers to finding a job – including those living with a disability (as well as those with experience of the care system or criminal justice system). This finding is based on research into existing high quality evidence relating to a range of the most common youth employment interventions.

Our recommendations for Government:

1)   Supported employment and internships can lead to significant improvements in employment outcomes and should therefore be prioritised by policymakers. The recent expansion of supported internships is welcome but supported employment programmes still require more investment.

2)   Long-term continuous support from the same specialist personal advisor or caseworker is vital for supporting autistic young people and / or those with learning disabilities to achieve positive outcomes because these individuals often experience a range of barriers to finding (and staying in) a good quality job.

3)   Programmes aimed at young people must ensure that staff have sufficiently low caseloads to spend adequate time with participants so that they can tailor services to meet young people’s individual needs.

What actions could employers be taking without Government support? What barriers prevent them doing so?

This response is based on discussions with the Youth Voice Forum (YVF), a forum of young people involved in the Youth Employment Group, the UK’s largest coalition of youth employment experts, as well as our D2N2 Connected Futures partnership workshop focusing on navigating employment for young people with learning disabilities and young people with autism. The areas the young people spoke about can be broken down into two sections: applications and ongoing support in work.

The young people reflected that at the interview stage of application, people with disabilities don’t always come across as well as those without disabilities to an employer and often feel that they are judged on this small interaction without realising how capable the young person really is. They discussed the importance of the type of interview offered, with some of the young people sharing that a one-way interview was incredibly anxiety inducing, even for a neurotypical person. The young people had asked for a face-to-face interview and an informal chat which allowed them to get a sense of what the person was like before the interview, allowing them to feel much more confident.

Allowing for reasonable adjustments in interview meant the young people felt much more confident in their ability to ask for reasonable adjustments within the workplace. They also shared how employers could make these adjustments such as creating a resource hub or information hotline to be able to discuss their needs in an easy and informal way, as well as connecting with charities and organisations that are supporting young people with disabilities, to ensure the workplace was informed by experts. As discussed in the section on rights near the end of the inquiry, this would ensure that young people did not feel responsible for ensuring their employer was disability confident. 

On the other hand, those young people who hadn’t been successful in interview, felt that there was often a lack of feedback and communication after the interview, creating a sense of distrust due to the lack of transparency at how decisions were made during the process. Another issue raised that created distrust was the misleading nature of job adverts, with unwritten requirements (such as being advertised as an 8 hour role, but looking for someone who could pick up more hours) being sprung upon them in interview.

How effectively are the rights of disabled people upheld and enforced in the workplace? What barriers do young disabled people face in accessing the support (including legal support) that they need and are entitled to? How could enforcement mechanisms be improved?

The response to this question is based on a session we held with Youth Futures Foundation’s Future Voices (FVG) Group, a group of young people based across the country who ensure our work is guided by young people with lived experience of facing barriers to employment. It is also based on discussions with the Youth Voice Forum (YVF), a forum of young people involved in the Youth Employment Group, the largest UK’s largest coalition of youth employment experts. Both discussions focused on disability within the workplace.

One of the first issues the young people identified in FVG session was the tension around disclosing their disability, having to weigh up between not wanting to be treated differently but needing accommodations. This an issue that starts within application processes which can inhibit young disabled people from applying to jobs due to the inaccessibility of applications, and goes into their wider working lives. The young people also pointed out that despite employers being bound by the Equalities Act to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities, they often felt it was necessary to have to ‘make a lot of noise’ before you were able to receive these adjustments and support.

In the YVF young people echoed these concerns around disclosure, worrying they wouldn’t be treated fairly if they disclose, so hiding their disability gave them a greater chance of getting employed - “employers may not want to employ disabled young people as they feel the young person is too much hard work”.

This transcended into the young people feeling they had a responsibility themselves to make the employer Disability Confident and push for their own adjustments, despite the legal responsibilities employers have. The young people felt it was important to find a network within their organisations to ensure they didn’t feel demoralised and could share experiences and ultimately mobilise efforts to influence change within an organisation. Therefore, young people are taking on this responsibility and having to challenge for their rights, both in disability confident and non-disability confident workplaces.

The young people also identified an issue with the credibility of the disability confident employer badge. They explained that they had experienced many organisations that had the badge without having to work hard to support disabled people and be inclusive and targeted within their hiring process. This made the young people doubt its credibility within other organisations and how effectively it was implemented to make the workplace a safe and supportive environment. Although many organisations understand in theory why they need to be disability confident, in practice they can find implementing reasonable adjustments and making their workplace accessible difficult.

A solution the young people identified was ensuring that workspaces wanting to be inclusive within their hiring process and practices reach out to external experts for support. This, the young people felt, could be a good way of ensuring the disability confident badge was credible and would create a more robust mechanism for supporting employers to implement these changes and help turn intent into action. 

Another issue identified by the young people in the YVF was being able to identify and know your rights in the first place, as well as having access to independent advocacy, which can vary across the country. The young people felt confident in approaching employers when they were able to state their support needs, ask for reasonable adjustments and know their rights were being respected due to them working with their independent advocate. They felt that having an advocacy organisation that was ‘specifically on your side’ can help significantly, as they have felt ignored when they tried to advocate for themselves.

Therefore, it is vitally important that a more robust mechanism is set up to support employers to implement changes so they are adhering to disability confident standards and can ensure young people receive reasonable adjustments and their workplace is accessible without having to ‘shout’ to receive it. It is also important young people have access to independent advocacy consistently across the country so young disabled people know their rights and have support to action them.

29 September 2023