Ask not what employers can do for
you……
Presenters
• Ms. Grainne Berrill
Project Coordinator WALK
PEER Programme (Louth)
• Ms. Carol Owen
Walkways Coordinator (Wales)
• Ms. Rachel Stevens
Director, Empowerall,
Introduction
• Human Potential • Our Beliefs • Traditional Services -
Challenges us to maximize!
Disability & Careers?
How are we doing?
• Why should / would employers hire people with
disabilities?
• How can we communicate better with employers to
get people with disabilities into employment?
• The Walkways PEER Model.
Employment Pop Quiz
Activity to set the context for the basis of needing to
engage with employers on a business level to increase
participation of people with disabilities in the open labour
market
Don’t Waste my Potential
Challenge your Beliefs
Beliefs
• Beliefs are not necessarily what’s true or factual in the
real world.
• The power of each belief comes only from the
individual believer.
• That means you can believe whatever you want to
believe. As long as you believe it to be true, it will be
true in your life.
Beliefs
• Consequently, you will attract events, experiences and
people in your life to match your beliefs. For this
reason, it is crucial to adopt only the beliefs that serve
you and to let go of those beliefs that limit you.
• What are your beliefs about people with disabilities
working in the open labour market?
Beliefs
• Analyse your beliefs?
• Are they helping or hindering?
• Do they move you forward
or hold you back?
• Do your beliefs guide you to create a presence in
someone’s life, that increases or decreases their
independence?
Traditional Services
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Welfare Dependency
Service Dependency
Social Dependency
Human Rights Dependency
• Do people that come into services ever leave?
• What does progression & career development look
like for them?
What are your beliefs about people
who have a disability and careers?
The Facts
• An ESRI report says, people with disabilities in Ireland
are half as likely to be employed as their non-disabled
peers.
• 36% of people with a disability are employed compared
with 77% of other adults.
• Census 2011 shows that youth unemployment in
Ireland is running at 38% while we are in a crisis at 14%
in the general population.
What are the employers missing?
• An awareness of the capabilities of people with
disabilities to do paid work i.e. sustain a job.
• An understanding of what supported employment is.
• The skills and confidence to communicate with people
with disabilities.
• The business case for hiring people with disabilities.
• The law
Why should employers hire people
with disabilities?
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It is the right thing to do!
If they can do the job?
Inclusion and diversity.
Corporate social responsibility.
It is the right thing to do!
The Employment Equality Acts 1998-2011 outlaw
discrimination on the grounds of disability in employment.
Why would employers hire people
with disabilities
• People with disabilities can do the job.
• It made good business sense.
• If the right supports were in place for the employee.
and the employer.
• If it had a positive effect on the workforce.
Walkways PEER Programme
Providing Equal Employment Routes
• An innovative early intervention model, to engage and
support progression towards education, training and
economic activity
• Co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund
through the Ireland Wales Programme 2007-2013 (Interreg
4A)
• A person centered, collaborative approach which supports
the development of individual personal progression plans
and actions to achieve the individual’s employment goals
Walkways PEER Programme
Beliefs
• Every person is able to do a job when and if the time is
right in their lives.
• A job means getting paid for doing work at the open
labour market rate, in the same way as other colleagues
and having equal employment rights
• The number of hours per day or week that a person
can actually work is different for everybody.
• Support to gain and maintain employment should be
for as long as a person needs. No more and no less.
Walkways PEER Programme
Approach
• Quality “Job Matching” is paramount before contacting
employers.
• Know exactly what you want when you contact an
employer.
• Focus on the hidden jobs market.
• Offer the employer something extra of value.
• Always do what you say you are going to do!
Walkways PEER Programme
Experience
• Walkways PEER programme Video
• Walkways PEER participant talks of their experience
on the programme
• An employer talks about their experience of hiring a
Walkways PEER Participant
• Rachel Steven’s, Empowerall Evaluation team.
Conclusion
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Results of the “Employment Pop Quiz”
Summary of presentation key points
Questions & Answers
Close