Supported employment

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Supported Employment (Supported Employment) provides support for disabled and other hard-to-place people to paid employment in the open labor market to get and keep.

Target groups

Supported employment is a customer-driven, professional service aimed at the following three customer groups:

Supported employment was initially developed for people with learning difficulties , i.e. with a so-called learning disability or intellectual disability . The recognition that people with severe disabilities can be successful in the labor market if they receive individual and long-term support is not limited to individual types of disability. Supported Employment projects have shown around the world that all disabled people can work in integrative employment relationships. B. People

  • with Down syndrome
  • with severe intellectual disabilities
  • with physical and multiple disabilities
  • with autism
  • with acquired brain damage and
  • (in modified form) with severe mental impairments.

Supported employment is particularly aimed at those people who without intensive individual support cannot find a job on the general labor market or would quickly lose their job again.

In some European countries there are signs of a further expansion of the target group, in that other groups of people with “work disabilities” such as people with serious social problems, e. For example, young people from inpatient youth welfare in Great Britain, young people who have been in prison and drug addiction in Norway or migrants in Finland and Sweden can be successfully integrated into companies through job coaching. The European Union of Supported Employment (EUSE) therefore expanded its definition of supported employment in 2005 so that it also includes other disadvantaged groups of people.

methodic procedure

Supported employment comprises the following methodological elements:

  • individual career planning with the creation of a professional profile
  • individual job search or support in looking for a job
  • Assistance in applying for funding
  • Workplace analysis and adaptation
  • Work trials, accompanied internships
  • Creation of an induction and support plan
  • Job coaching, qualification on the job
  • Advice and support from colleagues in the company
  • Further support, psychosocial care as required, from occasional crisis intervention to permanent support in the workplace.

Principles

Supported employment is an outpatient organizational form of vocational rehabilitation and the support of people with disabilities in working life. In contrast to traditional rehabilitation measures, Supported Employment is based on

  • individual support instead of support in groups
  • the creation of a dynamic individual skill profile, assessment in real operational situations instead of status diagnostic tests and assessment in artificial external situations
  • active individual job acquisition instead of reactive job placement related to job groups
  • Direct support for qualification and inclusion in companies in the general labor market through job coaching instead of preparatory external qualification and exclusion in special institutions
  • Intensive advice and concrete personal support from an integration consultant or a job coach to take up and secure an employment relationship

Supported employment offers all the help and support necessary to find a job on the general labor market and to keep it successful, depending on the individual case.

Supported employment is not just a new methodological approach to vocational rehabilitation, it is based on a changed view of both people with disabilities and how vocational rehabilitation institutions should offer their support. The underlying values ​​and principles are:

  • Self-determination and choices
  • Inclusion, participation in (work) life
  • Individual, company-based and local support
  • Equal opportunities, protection from discrimination
  • Orientation towards skills and quality of life

Core elements

Supported employment is defined internationally by the following core elements:

  1. Integration : The most important characteristic of Supported Employment is that people with a disability work in regular companies alongside non-disabled colleagues. Supported employment is intended to promote integration in all areas of everyday work. In addition to working together, this also includes breaks, celebrations in the company, driving to and from work and activities outside the company among colleagues. The degree of integration achieved in the company is the measure of the success of the supported employment.
  2. Paid, regular work : Supported employment is about helping people with paid work that would otherwise have to be done by non-disabled people and not about therapeutic, unpaid employment. Every employee with a disability should receive at least the same pay for the same work. Compensation for underperformance can be achieved either by adjusting wages to productivity or by subsidizing wage costs.
  3. First place, then qualify : This is a reversal of the common rehabilitation paradigm “first qualify, then place” based on the knowledge that many people, especially people with learning difficulties, learn better in real situations and have problems generalizing what they have learned. In practice, it has also been shown that people often get stuck in the system outside of real-life situations and are not adequately prepared for the requirements. The low transition rate from workshops for disabled people to the general labor market or the transition problems after external professional preparation and training are examples of this.
  4. Support offers for all people with disabilities : The target group of Supported Employment are in particular people with severe disabilities who were previously considered “unable to be placed” and who need more intensive individual help in order to successfully find and fill a job. In principle, nobody should be turned away because of the severity of their disability (“Zero Reject”). It is seen as the task of Supported Employment to develop integrative work opportunities and the necessary support offers individually for people with the most severe disabilities.
  5. Flexible and individual support : Support in Supported Employment should include all aids that are necessary in individual cases in order to work successfully in a company. To do this, the help must be offered flexibly and very individually. Supported employment includes individual support in future professional planning, job search, job adaptation, qualification and problems at work, but e.g. B. also driver training on the way to work or the necessary assistance in using a toilet for people with a corresponding physical disability.
  6. No time limit on support : Many people with severe disabilities need lifelong support. As in a workshop for disabled people, in supported employment the necessary support in the workplace should be possible for as long as necessary, in other words for a lifetime. As a rule, however, the necessary help is reduced after a more intensive familiarization phase.
  7. Providing choice and promoting self-determination : The role of Supported Employment is to expand the traditionally very limited options of people with disabilities in terms of the type of work and the type of support. On the one hand, supported employment helps people with severe disabilities to have other options in terms of support in working life in addition to a workshop for disabled people. On the other hand, the task of supported employment is to explore different work opportunities with the applicant. The aim is to promote and respect self-determination during the entire support process, e.g. B. in the selection of a job and the design of support in the workplace.

development

United States

The concept of Supported Employment was developed in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It has now established itself as a new approach to vocational rehabilitation in many countries around the world. Supported Employment began in the USA after a number of successful model projects with the first legal anchoring in 1984. The law defined Supported Employment in the USA as follows:

Supported Employment is

  1. Paid employment for people with developmental disabilities who are unlikely to find employment in the general labor market at or above the minimum wage and who need long-term support to be able to work
  2. possible in a variety of constellations in which people without disabilities are employed
  3. Support from any activity that helps maintain paid work, including guidance, training, and travel to and from work

In 2005, nearly 200,000 people with disabilities were employed in the general labor market through supported employment and similar strategies.

The American umbrella organization for Supported Employment is APSE - the employment network .

Europe

Supported Employment has existed in Europe, with first precursors in the 1980s and since the early 1990s. From the mid-1990s onwards, a sudden quantitative development up to the nationwide introduction can be seen in many countries. In Ireland and Great Britain, the American development of Supported Employment was also more likely to take up due to the common language and with a few exceptions (France, Belgium, Denmark) the spread of Supported Employment in Europe ran from west to east. In Ireland, the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland), the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Northern Italy (with their own tradition), there used to be larger model projects in Supported Employment. Austria, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Cyprus followed from the mid-1990s and there are now the first projects in Greece, Malta, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Denmark .

In 1993 the European Union of Supported Employment (EUSE) was founded as a European network in this field.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

In Germany and Austria, the concept of supported employment has been successfully tested in numerous model projects since the early 1990s. The concept of supported employment has significantly influenced the development of work assistance and job coaching in Austria and the integration services in Germany, so the target group and the methodological elements are reflected in the legal regulations.

In Germany, supported employment is regulated in Section 55 of Book IX of the Social Code. The regulation was introduced as Section 38a of Book IX of the Social Code on December 22, 2008. The Employment Agency then introduced supported employment as a measure for individual company qualification (InbeQ) . The individual company qualification is carried out in companies in the general labor market and supported by a qualification trainer (staff ratio 1: 5). The measure usually lasts 24 months, but can be extended by a further 12 months under certain conditions. After the measure, there is, if necessary, a legal right to the integration offices for further professional support . In the years 2009–2012, almost 6,500 participants were advertised by the Employment Agency. The measure is aimed in particular at people with disabilities, for whom vocational training does not seem to be achievable, but who can work on the general labor market with the appropriate support in an employment relationship subject to social insurance and are therefore not dependent on a workshop for disabled people (WfbM). With this limitation of the target group, this supported employment measure (InbeQ) differs from the concept of supported employment described above, which is expressly open to all people regardless of the type and severity of the disability (cf. core element 4).

The Federal Working Group for Supported Employment (BAG UB) was founded in 1994 and is an association of people and institutions in Germany that promote the spread of supported employment. The comparable organization in Austria is the umbrella organization for vocational integration (included) . Supported employment Switzerland was founded in Switzerland in 2008 as the national umbrella organization .

When looking at the development of Supported Employment in the USA, Europe, Austria and Germany, a discrepancy between the claims of Supported Employment and the state of development achieved under the respective funding framework conditions becomes clear. In Germany, this applies in particular to support for people with severe disabilities in companies in the general labor market and the possibility of permanent support.

literature

Web links

Nationwide organizations in Germany

Nationwide organizations in Austria

National organization in Switzerland

Integration companies and providers in Germany

European umbrella organization

Databases with references on the topic

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Translation into German according to European Union of Supported Employment (EUSE): Information booklet and quality standards. 2004 PDF; EUSE quality standards  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bag-ub.de  
  2. ^ Stefan Doose: Supported employment: professional integration in the long term. Theory, methodology and sustainability of supporting people with learning difficulties in the general labor market. A fate and course study. 3rd updated and completely revised edition. Lebenshilfe-Verlag, Marburg 2012, p. 137, ISBN 978-3-88617-216-0
  3. ^ Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1984, Public Law 98-527
  4. ↑ Bob Lawhead: Testimony before Senate HELP committee hearing “Opportunities for too few? Oversight of Federal Employment Programs for People with Disabilities “ October 20, 2005 In: the Advance (2005) Vol. 16, No. 3, 2-3, 8th digithttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.apse.org%2Fdocuments%2FFall05.pdf~GB%3D~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~ double-sided%3D~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D
  5. ↑ APSE
  6. ↑ (EUSE)
  7. ↑ through Article 5 of the Law on the Introduction of Supported Employment ( BGBl. 2008 I p. 2959 , PDF)
  8. ↑ Federal Employment Agency: Product Information Supported Employment according to Section 38a SGB IX  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 95 kB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.arbeitsagentur.de  
  9. ↑ Federal Working Group for Rehabilitation (BAR): Joint recommendation according to § 38a Paragraph 6 SGB IX "Supported Employment" of December 1, 2010. Frankfurt 2010
  10. ^ Stefan Doose: Supported employment: professional integration in the long term. Theory, methodology and sustainability of supporting people with learning difficulties in the general labor market. A fate and course study. 3rd updated and completely revised edition. Lebenshilfe-Verlag, Marburg 2012, p. 112, ISBN 978-3-88617-216-0
  11. ↑ BAG UB
  12. ↑ (besides)
  13. ↑ supported employment Switzerland