Employability Plus Erasmus Project

Project Title

Employability Plus

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Disabilities – special needs; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The project aims to increase the inclusion and integration of disabled and disadvantaged young people (DDYP) into the job market by addressing the difficulties faced by the partner organisations in encouraging employers to offer job opportunities to DDYP. The project will bring together 3 organisations from 3 EU countries (UK, Spain and Germany) to develop an effective model of working with employers to include and support disabled and disadvantaged young people into work.

The low employment rate for disabled people is a significant problem across Europe. The EU Youth Strategy 2010-2018 identifies employment and social inclusion as major concerns for young people. The EU Disability Strategy 2010-2020 states that “For people with disabilities the rate of poverty is 70% higher than average partly due to limited access to employment”. A major cause of high unemployment has been identified by participating organisations as the negative attitudes of employers to working with disabled young people.

The partners will identify the issues that DDYP and their employers face at work; research best practice solutions to address these and test these practices in each organisation with a view to improving and adjusting them to work for different target groups. Specific objectives are to:

• Improve knowledge and understanding of employers’ attitudes and barriers to employing DDYP.

• Understand, transfer and develop knowledge of successful approaches to engaging employers in different countries.

• Develop the capacity of youth workers to engage with employers in recruiting DDYP into the workplace.

The main beneficiaries will be staff members of the 3 partner organisations who engage daily with DDYP. Indirect beneficiaries will total 240, comprising two staff members at each employer engaged by the project and 150 disabled or disadvantaged young people that the organisations will involve in the project.

We will apply an iterative methodology to develop the model using the following steps:

• Sharing practices on employer engagement.

• Testing practices

• Identifying working elements

• Sharing results

• Fine tuning practices accordingly

• Testing new fine-tuned practices

The project will be implemented within the programmes that participating organisations currently deliver. We will collect, analyse and evaluate data focussed on the following four stages of employer engagement:

1. First point of contact (what is the best way to approach an employer, what type of employer is more receptive to what type of approach, how to reach decision makers within a company).

2. Persuasion (how to most effectively change perceptions and improve knowledge regarding capabilities of disabled people in the workplace across an entire company organisational structure).

3. Getting the disabled person into work with due support (how can employers provide due support within the working environment in an effective way and optimising the time spent by internal resources, how youth workers can support young people effectively into employment, how youth organisations can support employers to engage with DDYP).

4. Gradual withdrawal to allow the disabled person to continue working independently (how long does it take for the person to work independently, what are the steps, what means of verification are needed).

The project will achieve the following impact:

• Improved capability of organisations to test and implement different practices to engage employers.

• Changed perceptions and knowledge of employers regarding disability in the workplace, improved use of equipment and understanding of appropriate technologies (if needed); improved capability to integrate DDYP into the workplace.

• Improvements in the way employers support beneficiaries in delivering tasks, improved understanding of the benefits of employing a DDYP; employers are better equipped to hire disabled young people.

• DDYP are more empowered in the workplace; have improved their interpersonal skills and are more effective in the workplace.

Project findings and good practices will be adopted by each of the partner organisations by capacity building staff to implement the identified best practices. This means that the results will be maintained and become an integral part of employability projects for the target groups. Trained staff will cascade these new methodologies to their peers which will ensure that engagement and successes in securing employment for their participants is maintained.

The project results will be shared locally and nationally in UK, Spain and Germany and across Europe and the model will eventually be applicable to different organisations working with young people facing different types of disadvantages, to improve their engagement with employers. As a result, disabled and disadvantaged young people in Europe, will have improved access to employment opportunities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 101650 Eur

Project Coordinator

The Royal Society for Blind Children & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Fundación Emplea
• Q-Prints & Service gGmbH