"Who you are is what you do."

When Keith, who has an intellectual disability, first started working at a New York book store, he was shy and rarely spoke to his colleagues. The part-time role involved keeping the place tidy, dusting the shelves and ordering the titles. It was Keith’s first job. After just a few weeks, the initially quiet young man began revealing “his full personality” and “very charming” behavior to both staff and customers, according to Keith’s manager Chad. 

Keith’s experience is a small but significant example of the positive impact of work. Work is not only a way to earn money and develop independence and choice, it is also chance to meet other people, develop skills and self-esteem, and contribute to society. Work makes us productive citizens and, more widely, it has a positive impact on the wider economy.

But Keith’s story is rare. Right now, while many of us prepare to return to work after the summer or get ready for a new term of studies or training that may lead to employment, relatively few people with an intellectual disability have paid jobs.

It is not simply the case that people do not want jobs (UK research, for example, has shown that 65% want jobs but cannot get one). Without work, there are fewer opportunities to get involved in the local community, and loneliness is a huge problem for people like Keith. Almost one in three young people with a learning disability spend less than an hour outside their home on a typical Saturday, according to the UK charity Mencap.

As Fredda Rosen, executive director of the charity Job Path in New York, says: “We live in a society where who you are is what you do.”

There are ways to change things.

Firstly, support staff can take simple steps to encourage people to work. A person-centered approach to job finding means getting to know the person and their interests. It also means involving family and friends and responding to people’s interests and choices. Does the job seeker prefer a busy or quiet workplace? How much support do they need in a role? And if they need a resume, can this be visual, rather than written?

Answering such questions will influence what kind of work might suit the person. Supported employment, for example, helps people into jobs by searching for positions that are available to anyone and gives them extra support in the role. Customized employment, however, matches individual skills and interests to employers’ unmet needs, and then designs a job description around the person.

Job carving is a customized approach that takes selected from one or more job descriptions and blends them into a new position to fit someone’s unique abilities. The person may be capable of doing aspects of a job, rather than the whole job. Self-employment may be another option as it can offer a customized, flexible and individualized way of working. Unpaid work or an internship (when time limited) can also be useful stepping stone but is not a substitute for a paid role.

Whatever method suits the person, one-to-one support shaped to individual need is vital. Over time, the amount of support provided should reduce.

“Everyone can work in some way,” says Beth Mount, an international consultant and person-centered planning expert. “Everyone can contribute and do something that’s really required, that’s really meaningful and purposeful that the community needs to have done.” This is reflected in figures from Job Path in New York, where 85% of the people coming to the charity find work that is suited to their skills and talents.

Ultimately, as Beth Mount says, “I think that raising expectations is a part of believing in the capacity for everybody to work “

Our module ‘Employment’ aims to inspire change. Watch the trailer here:

Learn more about the entire Open Future resource here.

For a free demo and trial please email: [email protected]

Ben Drew