Jobs First – What works and
doesn’t work
Martin Stevens
Social Care Workforce Research Unit
King’s College London
Introduction
• Background
• Aims and methods
• Emerging findings
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Context
Culture change
Implementation issues
Kinds of supported employment
Workforce issues
Pathways
• Conclusions
Background
• Personalisation and
employment
• Valuing Employment Now
• Multiple funding streams
• Refocusing support on
employment
• Seven authorities selected,
five took part
• Comparison group study
• Process evaluation
Context
Financial climate
“Adult social care - we have 35 percent savings
to make over the next three years.” Jobs First
Lead 04
Changing personnel and services
“The decisions that the elected members will
be willing to take in the face of what may upset
their constituents. Say, for example, closing
more day centres and getting people into
employment, when you’ve got carers who may
oppose that.” Jobs First Lead 04
High unemployment
“I think that’s a barrier, that people’s
perception that this is a bad time to get jobs
and therefore, there is almost like, therefore
they don’t have a right to a job, to get a job, do
you know what I mean?” Jobs First Lead 07
More context
Progress with personalisation
“...we already had well established expectations
around personal budgets...and when we put the
application together for Jobs First I felt we were
in a strong position, because we already had
quite a lot of personal budget users.” Jobs First
Lead 01
Impact of Getting a Life and Right to Control
“We became aware of the first programme
through the Getting a Life project. We just felt it
fitted naturally to thinking about work
pathways...And also we already had an existing
project team for Getting a Life. We felt we had
enough local knowledge and expertise to bring
to the programme.” Jobs First Lead 01
Promoting the employability of people
with learning disabilities
• Attitudes of people with learning disabilities and
their families/carers, care managers and care
workers, members of the public, employers
• Approaches to changing attitudes
“We’ve seen a dad come along to Getting a Life event, huffing
and puffing that he didn’t know why he’d come and it would
all be a complete and utter waste of time and we showed the
Value Now In Employment film and we had two people say
their stories. He went away just with a very changed view on
what his daughter’s life might be like in the future. That’s key.”
Jobs First Lead 08
Prioritising employment as a goal
Organisations
• Woven into wider
policies
• Formally identified in
the Resource Allocation
System
• Addressing barriers
such as charging
policies
• Jobs First acts as a spur
People with learning
disabilities and their
families
• Jobs First made
employment seem a
real possibility
• Fear of change was a
big issue: esp benefits
• Practical implications –
eg time outside of
home
Jobs focussed resource allocation,
review and support planning
• RAS to include resources for employment directly or
indirectly
• Employment to be considered when major life
changes, such as housing, are being discussed.
• Support planning and brokerage to identify general
employment and other goals and supported
employment and other services
• Signing off support plans
– Levels of management involvement
– Sustainability
– Faith in provision availability
Practice issues
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Preparing people for the experience of work
Being able to maintain current friendships
Promoting understanding of work
How much to prioritise employment
“You couldn’t expect someone to go without certain
basic hygiene and support needs in favour of getting a
job.” Jobs First Lead 02
• Support to employers
– To identify jobs
– Ongoing support
– Developing natural support from colleagues
Personalised approaches
• Personal budgets enhancing the value of
person-centred planning
“Again, it’s going back to that other thing about person
centred plans sitting almost as a satellite thing and not really
impacting. Well if [personalisation] is going to be the catalyst
that makes those things happen then, yes.” Jobs First Lead 04
• Help to include people with more severe
learning disabilities
Risks and protective factors of
personalisation
Potential dangers/harms
Poor quality services?
Unregulated services?
Loss of collective voice in
increasing quality
Protective factors
Market forces driving up
quality?
Individuals in a more
empowered position to
manage risk?
???
Supported employment provision
• A key aspect affecting success
• Availability of supported employment provision affects
care managers’ willingness to ‘sign off’ plans
• Building on existing models of supported employment
provision, including in house services
• Some commissioning of new providers – framework
agreements
• Difficulty in developing a business model in the
absence of block contracts
• Costing supported employment accurately is a key
factor
Workforce issues
• Who should be a job coach
• Specialists only?
• More difficult for longstanding care staff
“I'm not sure we can recycle people and skills
in existing services to quickly meet the need for
employment supports or whether we need a new set
of skills and people in this role” Jobs First Lead 01
• Training – especially Training in Systematic
Instruction
Social Care Funding
• Incorporating employment into Resource Allocation
Systems – what priority?
• Role of social care funding?
• Size of budget
“What you could end up with is the RAS doesn’t come out
adequate enough to meet the needs and they then have to go
back through reassessment which is where we are at now
with people coming through, that allocation is not high
enough and send them back through review and that is what
we’ve got today, today I had a conversation again about
people that have come through. The allocation clearly isn’t
enough back through.” Jobs First Lead 02
Accessing non social care funding
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Work Choice – tied into services
College funding tied into courses
Access to work – tied into working 16 hours?
Right to Control?
How to integrate plans using multiple funding
streams
• Co-funding or double funding in times of
austerity?
Emerging employment Pathway – local authorities
• Secure high level leadership and practitioner
commitment
• Include employment as a domain in the RAS
• Ensure everyone is in receipt of personal budgets
• Identify national &local drivers for collaboration of Jobs
Centre Plus (JCP) - Service dependency = benefit trap?
• Ensure JCP Disability Employment Advisors are engaged
• Secure agreement with JCP that all people with LD
receive a ‘Better off in work’ calculation
• Ensure staff have up to date awareness of benefit
changes – eg ‘Universal Credit’ and implications of move
to ‘Employment Support Allowance’
• Market scoping
Emerging Jobs First pathway - individuals
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Ensure all elements person-centred
Provide timely and up to date information
Identify and document skills and experience
Establish or review eligibility
Support planning: better via independent sector?
Identify appropriate kinds of support to reach outcomes
Negotiate costs and finalise support plan – get sign off
Start job searching
GET JOB
Maintain access to flexible support
Access to Work funding application when working >16 hours
Re-Access job coaching and DEA referral if lose job
Conclusions
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Value of other projects
Complexity of change required
Interagency working
Early work on changing attitudes at a senior
and practitioner level
• Exclusion of people with more severe and
profound learning disabilities
• Pathways to change
Thank You
Martin Stevens – 020 7848 1860 – martin.stevens@kcl.ac.uk
Jess Harris – 020 7848 1503 – jess.harris@kcl.ac.uk