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Disability & Business in Europe

Disability Equals Business was an active partner in Working Towards Diversity, a European partnership including Equal projects from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The national partnerships’ aims and objectives are summarised below.

England - Disability Equals Business

Disability Equals Business worked with businesses across Sussex and Brighton and Hove in the South-East of the UK to help employers identify and remove the barriers to employment of disabled people and socially excluded groups. A team of Employment Diversity Consultants worked with businesses providing information, advice and support and producing equality and diversity action plans based on improving the business’s performance. The Project also provided a web-based toolkit that businesses could access for ongoing support. The benefits for the employer are an increased recruitment pool, gaining a better public image and effective compliance with the law.

Austria - Pro-Fit

In Austria there are a number of well-established integration services for people with disabilities, but research findings and project experiences showed that to improve their progress into the labour market, more relevant information for and co-operation with businesses was required. Pro-Fit Lower Austria’s main goals were to promote information and consulting services for employers in the region of Lower Austria, and to increase the employability of people with disabilities by offering dissemination training. The project’s activities provided innovative approaches to reach the two main goals: A regional network of businesses, disabled people, integration services and policy makers to support integration, a mediation service for businesses, a consulting service for SMB, and a training programme for people with disabilities to work as disseminators. The project also included formative research.

www.sfs-research.at (new window)

Germany - Talents - Development of Self-determination and Choices

This DP aimed specifically to structurally improve the transition between school and profession for people with disabilities. There were nine projects in several regions of Germany who worked together in developing sustainable network structures and effective concepts for a transition from school to work. Each project considered the individual interests and special needs of young people and of employers. The aim was to create a successful transition via individual promotional measures, the offer of support, and to include all relevant network partners in these processes. The composition of the DP of schools, educational establishments, integration service agencies, representatives of interested parties, companies and other institutions on national and regional levels supported these aims.

www.equal-talente.de (new window)

Netherlands - Career Centre

The project was made up of six teams working with six schools, developing new ways of working, seeing and doing. We were coaching 60 disabled young people on their way towards working, living and filling their free time. We identified stages to employment with the disabled young people, building on their individual skills and potential, developing instruments to improve their transition to the labour market. This had a major effect on the participating schools: there was a new vision of learning and teaching, the teachers had to be guided to change their plans to become coaches for the young people instead of just teaching them academic subjects. The society had to be part of the school; we bridged gaps between the school and teacher’s world and the ‘real’ world.

Netherlands - Jobcomposing

The disabled young people in special schools in the Netherlands have difficulties in entering the labour market. Our schools have a responsibility to educate and prepare them for participation in society, a society where they have few opportunities because of a poor economy and lack of jobs. Our Equal experiment focused on the jobcomposer who created jobs for individual young people. The potential of the young people was the first step to the PERFECT match. The next step was the job, specially created for this person. The jobcomposer compiled different tasks from different functions in a workplace to create a new job. The role of the young person in this process was an active and leading one.

The common objectives of Working Towards Diversity were:

a) to work towards influencing and persuading employers to increase their understanding and awareness of disabled and chronically ill people;

b) to work towards breaking down the misconceptions and barriers to employment;

c) to exchange strategies and experiences for the empowerment of disabled and chronically ill people;

d) to disseminate to all partners and to a wider audience, for example key policy and decision makers, the lessons learnt from the work of the partnership.