Session 5: Work and employment

Introduction

Many people with learning disabilities want to work, but in practice very few manage to find and keep jobs. While the employment rate within the general population in England and Scotland hovers around 74-75%, for people with learning disabilities who are known to their local authority, the figure is approximately 6%. The Welsh and Northern Irish governments do not publish data on how many people with learning disabilities are in paid work.

Despite lots of policy focus on getting more disabled people into work, in practice, the numbers of people with learning disabilities in paid work have barely changed at all in recent years. For that reason, it is really important to learn more about what helps people into work, and what the barriers might be.

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Transcript: Video 1

TERRY

So they said ‘You can teach in your cooking course for disabled people’. So that's what I did. And, yeah, I got paid for it, which was cool.

SHAUN

My high point was getting a volunteer job at Cancer Research. The low point though was that I got blamed because someone stole a jumper.

CIAN

I was basically there to kind of stack things on the shelves.

CHARLENE

The company that I'm with, Access All Areas, to me, if I didn't have them, I'd be nowhere to be honest. Because it's kind of grown me as an actor and also grown me as a person.

End transcript: Video 1

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Video 1

In this session you will explore:

• what helps people with learning disabilities get and keep a job
• what makes it more difficult for people with learning disabilities to get and keep a job
• what is good or bad work for people with learning disabilities.