British Association for Supported Employment (BASE) – Written evidence (YDP0063)
The House of Lords Public services committee- Transition from education to employment for young disabled people.
General- The British Association for Supported Employment {BASE} are a national charity funded through membership with a mission that employment must be for all. With a clear evidence base, around high aspiration, quality, and partnership working, the supported employment model, empowers individuals, communities, and employers to access good quality careers for disabled, neurodivergent, and disadvantaged people. BASE brings a wealth of strengths, knowledge, and expertise, having been the leading voice around Inclusive Recruitment for over 15 years, developing the national occupational standards, Quality assurance framework. BASE develops partnerships partnership to work from a removal of barriers perspective and Employers are valued as an equal partner, where long lasting relationships are built that supports the ongoing positive cultures embedded within organisations. The model was originally designed to overcome the huge barriers that exist for people with a learning disability and or autism into employment, once embedded into recruitment practices.
BASE’s mission is to positively represent, connect and collaborate with our rich and diverse members. To constantly champion an aspirational vision, that everyone who wants to work, has the right support to do so. To create a UK wide employer work culture, where inclusion is the golden thread and employers feel empowered to move from disability confident to disability confident in action. To lead with compassion and integrity where humans are at the heart. BASE represents approximately 300 member organisations and has developed strategic partnerships to lead the way in embedding the evidenced based model at the heart of UK employment focused provision.
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?
Disabled and neurodivergent people face considerable barriers when leaving education and entering into the job market and the statistics demonstrate that people with a learning disability and or autism remain the most excluded groups, with only 5.8% of people known to adult social care accessing paid employment. Adult social care outcomes framework 2023 to 2024: draft handbook of definitions - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
These barriers begin long before a young person enters the world of transition when families of disabled and neurodivergent people must often fight for support at every stage of their young person’s lives and often based on a deficit model. Families are asked to describe everything that their young person can’t do, to access support from Health, access an EHCP, access the welfare benefits system and then an expectation to have high aspiration when it comes to accessing employment. BASE believes in a zero-rejection policy, where everyone who wants to work should have access to the right support to enable them to do so, which is not always shared across the system at a local or national level.
There is a lack of ambition within the Education sector, which means young people are still sometimes assessed as being “employable” or “not employability” when in fact the evidence shows that a presumption of employment leads to better employment outcomes for people.
There has been a reduction in the range of vocational courses that young disabled people have access to and with the increased focus on Maths, English and T-levels, this further disadvantage disabled people. Pathways for All: A Commission on Level 2 & 3 Education and Training Reform Monday 26 June 2023 (youthemployment.org.uk)
The most recent Youth voice census highlighting the discontent between young peoples aspiration and the education pathways to support them. Youth Voice Census 2023 - Youth Employment UK
A SEND school in Berkshire identified.
“Unfortunately, due to course entry requirements set by colleges x has had NO single pupil move on to a subject-specific or vocational course in the past 5 years. All pupils who move on to college are restricted to either (broadly speaking) a 'work preparation' course or a 'skills for living' course. Despite some adjustments to these courses by college providers the offer remains the same - those who 'might' get into work do a 3 day a week work-related learning course with an element of work experience. Often past students tell us that they repeat the same things they have done through our careers programme at school but less in depth. Those on the skills for living course are largely seen as being 'not on an employment pathway' so undertake various domestic and social activities”. To put it starkly out of a potential minimum 50 students for whom non-SEN specific courses would be a reasonable aspiration 0 Brookfield’s students have been able to access these in the last 5 years. This includes T-Levels for which the practical in-work element is a particularly compelling element for our cohorts to learn on the job skills”.
There is a clear evidence base around how to best support disabled people, especially those with a learning disability, autism, or multiple barriers, into good quality careers, and the supported employment model is receiving greater recognition. The Supported employment model underpins a range of approaches to supporting people, including Supported Internships, Inclusive apprenticeships, and supported employment straight into work.
The government has invested significant amounts of funding into the expansion of Supported Internships, which BASE is one of three consortium partners delivering and hugely supporting of the model, as it is proven to work Internships Work - NDTi. However, this pathway is not available to everyone that would benefit and there is a shortage of investment in the Supported Employment partners that can move this from jobs to careers.
Currently individuals need an education and healthcare plan to be eligible for Supported Internships, which provides its own inequalities around access to a plan. The DfE have announced a POC to expand the model to individuals without a plan, which could help to address this inequality.
However, with such a focus on this one pathway into employment, local areas are not always exploring all the options that should be open to young people or don’t have the resources to explore any other pathways, including good quality study programs, work experience, Saturday jobs, paid work alongside college, and Inclusive apprenticeships.
The quality of the support available across the UK, varies and the work that BASE is leading on to develop the Supported Internship Quality Assessment Framework, is already driving up quality, however a similar approach should be applied to all employment focused pathways for young disabled people- we need quality throughout the system, not just specific parts of it.
Expanding study programs- good quality work experience is an essential stage in young people transitioning into careers, and the task of sourcing work experience is often placed on team members with no training or expertise in engaging with employers. Work experience in schools for young people with disabilities is not usually a true work experience and as part of raising aspirations of employment, young people need to experience true work experiences, i.e what we always say you don’t know what you don’t know. We understand the pressures that teaching staff are under within schools to ensure they meet their curriculum but by using a partnership approach with other organisations, they can ensure that a young person is equipped with more skills and experiences to help them on their career journey for when they are transitioning from education.
Accessible tech- for many young disabled and neurodivergent people, accessible tech either plays or should play a role in helping them on their employment journey. We have seen colleges such as the Oaks specialist college The Oaks Specialist College who have embedded everyday accessible tech {available on their phones} into their curriculum for all students, so they leave school able to access and use tech to support them in the workplace. Yet, we hear that many mainstream schools are moving to denying access to phones and therefore tech from their classrooms in efforts to manage safeguarding and behaviour but to the detriment of access. Accessible tech within supported employment model to drive inclusive recruitment | Policy Connect
Getting a job must be the start of the journey and therefore on-going and expert in-work support needs to be available for all young people accessing employment. Evidence shows that areas that have partnerships that include adult supported employment partners achieve better and more sustainable employment outcomes for young people and DFN project Search evidence shows that their areas with an adult supported employment partner achieve consistently better outcomes.
There is currently no statutory responsibility that local authorities must provide Supported Employment, despite the growing evidence in the wider costs benefits and impact these commissions provide, see the growing evidence base of cost benefit analysis completed for Supported Employment- The Cost/Benefit Argument | British Association for Supported Employment (base-uk.org)
There remains a postcode lottery as to the commission of Supported Employment in local areas and BASE supports a proposal to make Supported Employment a statutory responsibility for local authorities, combined authorities, and mayoral regions, and integrated care boards, to begin to provide equity across the country in accessing good quality support.
How far do barriers to young disabled people accessing other public services, such as health and care services, present a barrier to young disabled people accessing the workplace?
There are layers of barriers that impact on young disabled and neurodivergent people accessing the right support within other public services, that in turn could support them with a more successful transition into employment. With rising numbers of EHCP’s being written and suggestions that there may be plans to reduce the number of plans to support councils to reduce the SEND budgets. EHCP’s remain the gateway to other provision such as the reduced entry requirements for apprenticeships.
There also remains growing numbers of young people waiting for both Autism and ADHD assessments, which in turn impacts on the support young people are receiving in education and services they may be eligible for when transitioning out into employment.
Scope of the inquiry
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?
BASE supports the broader approach to this enquiry, as it is important to reflect the experiences and barriers for all young disabled and neurodivergent people, especially at a point where it is becoming harder to get an EHCP or diagnosis. There are services available for families to challenge Local authority EHCP decisions but these need to be privately funded and therefore those young people and their families from lower socio-economic backgrounds become further marginalized from the system.
We would recommend the enquiry takes a total family approach to the barriers, as families are often so important in the transition to employment and often not included in the conversations. For young people with an EHCP accessing employment pathways, there can be a reluctance for the family to support a job start before the young person’s 25th birthday, as the families are aware that many LAs won’t reissue the plan, if the employment doesn’t work out.
Families and young people needs greater levels of reassurance that there will easily accessed mechanisms to reinstate support, if the employment doesn’t work, there needs to be safety nets for people to explore and try employment.
Access to good quality employment is one of the recommendations made by Professor Marmot in his fair society, health lives report, yet apart from IPS, supported employment is largely funded through Local authorities and grant funding. Fair society, healthy lives : the Marmot Review : strategic review of health inequalities in England post-2010. - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Access to good quality employment support should be considered as a positive health intervention for young disabled and neurodivergent people as an alternative or in partnership with medicalised models of support.
Support for young disabled people.
How effectively do education systems provide careers advice, guidance and support which meet the needs and career aspirations of young disabled people? How could this be improved, and what examples of good practice are there in the UK and abroad?
There is a lack of specialist tailored careers and guidance support, especially within mainstream education. The Careers and Enterprise company have linked enterprise advisors within special educational needs schools; however, this specialism is not always sufficient in ensuring disabled young people in mainstream or those without an EHCP have access to the same bespoke support. The Careers and Enterprise company have been exploring with Base, how to address this gap in understanding across all schools.
For many young disabled and neurodivergent young people, the only FE courses they are able to undertake are focused on employability, due to the maths and English requirements for more technical courses. Colleges draw down funding to deliver employability courses, but these are often not meaningful, with no evidence that they led to progressions into employment. Young people often leave these courses with certificates that mean nothing in the world of work and are not way matched to the labour skills needed across the UK and often delivered by teachers who have received no training in how to support disabled and neurodivergent young people into jobs. The evidence base is clear that the Place, Train and Maintain approaches, delivered in partnership with Supported Employment services leads to significantly improved employment outcomes. Internships are evidence that the place and train model works and this approach should be embedded into all study programs and not just Internships. Longitudinal-outcomes-of-Project-SEARCH.pdf (dfnprojectsearch.org)
There is also a lack of training for teachers and support staff in understanding the models of best practice and evidence base in supporting disabled and neurodivergent young people towards good quality careers. BASE would like to see training around evidenced based employment models included within SENCO and Careers leads training.
Without mandatory quality checking in place such as the SIQAF education providers can continue to deliver employment focused programs that are not evidenced based and don’t lead to positive employment destinations for young disabled and neurodivergent people. These quality approaches should be extended beyond the Supported Internship model and Base would welcome the opportunity to explore what this could look like, Supported Internship Quality Assurance Framework (SIQAF) | British Association for Supported Employment (base-uk.org)
There are examples of local areas that have taken a proactive approach to embedding great careers guidance into mainstream schools and a wonderful example is the Education People in Kent; have been developing a programme for mainstream schools that not only trains and mentors’ careers staff but also supports the SLT in each school
To embed Supported Employment within their career’s guidance strategy. They are currently in year 3 of this KCC commissioned contract and looking to expand to other LAs in the future. This is an example of a local model that is training each mainstream school to add evidence-based strategies for students with SEND such as introducing vocational profiling in schools, we have evidence from schools regarding the positive impact this is making to the students learning but also evidence of it helping with circle of support communication and creating a smoother transition to SI’s, Apprenticeships and the world of work.
a) Do staff in schools and other education settings providing careers guidance and advice have the appropriate training and resources to support the needs and aspirations of young disabled people?
b) How do far do staff in education settings engage with employment support services and schemes such as Access to Work, supported internships, or disability employment advisors in order to support young disabled people?
There are examples of local systems building effective partnerships bringing together all stakeholders, including employers and the Send employment forums should provide some of this support, this remains less or more effective in individual areas. There is a lack of understanding generally within the education sector around how to build sustainable relationships with employers, BASE and the supported employment model recognises the importance of valuing the employer as an equal partner.
How far do employment support mechanisms such as Access to Work or Disability Employment Advisors meet the needs of young disabled people entering the job market for the first time? How could these services be improved?
Access to work is such an important scheme that is the envy of our colleagues across Europe and the globe, but we need to ensure it remains focused on the social model of disability. Young people with a learning disability and Autism in particular, often need significant support in accessing support through Access to Work and supported employment providers often pick this support up but are not funded to do so, if individuals are even lucky enough to have a local supported employment provider. Access to work funds support for people once they have a job but often people need significant support helping them to navigate through the barriers presented from the recruitment process itself and with reduced LA budgets, we are seeing an increase in disabled people approaching us for pre-employment support. While we must recognise the efforts made by the access to work teams to address some of the challenges within the system, there remains significant delays in payments being made to providers, which especially for smaller originations causing cash flow challenges and reduces the numbers of people they can support.
In previous times there were Access to Work account managers that had relationships within local areas and if a known great supplier, payments ect could be fast tracked. BASE would recommend consideration of bringing back a similar model, especially for people with a learning disability and or Autism who are more likely to need Job coaching support, in addition to equipment, transport.
What is the first point that a young disabled person would engage with an employment support scheme, and how are such schemes communicated to young disabled people?
BASE would recommend that employment should be embedded within the curriculum from the earliest age possible and have examples of where this is being done well across the country, both at a systems and local level. This is sometimes driven by Education like the Berkshire schools project Microsoft PowerPoint - James Whybra (base-uk.org) but more often by Supported Employment providers such as the Education people in Kent, who have been commissioned to deliver training into schools around embedding employment into education. The Education People | British Association for Supported Employment (base-uk.org)
What are young disabled people’s experiences of the transition from education-based support to employment-related support? Do young disabled people face barriers to accessing support during this transition? Could these services be better linked, and if so, how?
The experiences of young people accessing the full range of good quality employment pathways remains a postcode lottery, with areas such as Kent and Gloucestershire that have commissioned services from transition into employment and beyond and other areas with limited support available at any point in the young person’s transition. The DfE Internships work commission looks to track the offer for young people with SEND across all 153 LAs through the send employment forums, that either already existed or have been set up, and could be a vehicle for ensuring a boarder range of options are commissioned and tracked locally.
Public services as good employers
How accessible are careers in public services to young disabled people when they are first entering the job market? Are there public services which very effectively recruit disabled people, and services where significant improvement is needed?
Public bodies can be some of the most challenging organisations for young people to access when first entering the labour market. For example, the NHS is the largest employer nationally, with around 133,400 FTE staff vacancies across trusts but often inflexible approach to recruiting. From Job descriptions that have essential requirements, often including examinations, to the need to attend a face-to-face interview, all of which not only provide barriers to disabled and neurodivergent people but also other underrepresented groups from within the community. NHS trusts have been great supporter of the Supported Internship model, which needs to be applauded but even after completing a full year of placements within a trust, individuals are often required to still go through the mainstream recruitment processes and doesn’t address the barriers to employment for those people who are currently ineligible for a Supported Internship.
There are examples of public body organisations that have led by example by taking a proactive approach to removing barriers for disabled and neurodivergent people. However, if we have an expectation that commercial business should be embedding inclusive recruitment practices all public bodies should be required to partner with specialist employment services to take a removal of barriers approach and widen participation beyond the Supported Internship model to enter the labour market.
What could public services employers learn from best practice elsewhere, including overseas, about recruiting and retaining young disabled people? What are the barriers to implementing such good practice?
Commercial organisations, especially SME’s have the flexibility to consider reasonable adjustments throughout the lifecycle of employee, including using working interviews, work trials and job shaping. Mediquip is a great example, having embedded the supported employment model into its workforce planning and is partnering with local Supported employment providers to offer a range of entry points into and career progression by partnership Supported Employment (medequip-uk.com)
Public services employers would benefit from considering how they can move beyond universal approaches such as, providing interview questions beforehand, to recognising the barriers the traditional recruitment processes, such as interviews place on disabled people. By partnering with Supported employment providers public services bodies could lead the way in recruitment for disabled people, with an expectation they should all be disability confident leaders. Many public services such as Local authorities and NHS still rely heavily on job descriptions that have essential qualifications within them which prevents a lot of young people with learning disabilities in being able to access them. There is work to be done with public services on how qualifications are not the essential part of someone being able to fulfil a job role, but it is matching a person’s skills to the job role, which will help successful employment. As we focus more on Employers needed to consider Inclusive recruitment, all public body organisations should be leading the way with Disability Confident gold standard.
BASE would support an approach that every public services employer should require their staff to understand mandatory training around supported employment techniques {inclusive recruitment} and accessible tech fundamentals. Policy Connect have launched a call for evidence into technology use in supported employment Call for Evidence: Technology use in Supported Employment | Policy Connect
Support for employers
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?
The Disability confident scheme is a great initiative, especially when set up but it does require modernisation providing both greater aspirations and support. There are currently around 18,000 employers signed up to the scheme and yet the disability employment gap, particularly for people with a learning disability and or autism has widened further and talking to employers there is a lack of confidence in the how you become disability confident in action.
BASE supports the disability employment charter Home | The DEC (disabilityemploymentcharter.org) and would go further to suggest that employers need a resource that helps them to understand how to remove the barriers for all disabled and neurodivergent people, throughout the lifecycle of employees. See confidential paper attached.
Employers also express concerns to Base about their experiences of working with existing government focused programs and too often experiencing the “dump and run”, where a disabled person has been placed but there has been no investment in supporting the employer.
The government’s new Universal Support has the Supported Employment model at the heart, and it is important that both quality and values are embedding throughout, and employers are valued as equal. Base believes it will be important to clearly communicate the difference in approach to build confidence in employers around what they should expect and for model fidelity to be embedded into those providers delivering Universal Support, so employers have a better experience. BASE developed an employer’s charter, to support employers to hold providers to account.
Enforcement of the rights of disabled people in the workplace
8) 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?
a) Is the present legal framework sufficient, in theory and in practice, in dealing with disability discrimination faced by young disabled people transitioning from education to work?
Many disabled and neurodivergent people and their families simply don’t understand their rights and many of the third sector organisations that have historically supported people to understand and advocate for their rights, are struggling to meet the demands of local communities.
Employers are often unsure of what is reasonable, especially when consider support other than physical adaptations and disabled people also don’t understand what they are allowed to request and at what stage.
BASE would like to highlight a set of key recommendations:
The British Association for Supported Employment welcomes any opportunities to further contribute to the House of Lords call for evidence to address the significant inequalities that exist for young disabled, neurodivergent and disadvantaged people into good quality careers.