Research

In celebration of International Day of People with Disabilities on 3 December 2020, Sodexo has published a report of the findings of a survey into the lived experience of employees and customers with disabilities.

Sodexo is a committed to disability inclusion, having made a global commitment to provide 100% of its workforce with access to programmes for people with disabilities by 2025. They achieved Leader status in the UK Government’s Disability Confident scheme in 2018, affirming its commitment to recruit and retain people with disabilities and long-term conditions. Sodexo is working with Project SEARCH and senior managers have spoken at a couple of recent BASE conferences.

The report, ‘A day without explanation: the future of disability inclusion?’, is the result of a survey carried out by Sodexo and PurpleSpace, the professional network hub for disabled employees.

Nearly 900 people from the PurpleSpace network, partner organisations, Sodexo and its external communities responded to the survey, which aimed to help Sodexo understand how to better support employees and customers with disabilities.

Leonard Cheshire has published an excellent report based on the findings from a survey of disabled workers and employers. The survey found that in the UK, 71% of disabled people who were employed in March 2020 have found that their work has been impacted by the pandemic. In Scotland this increases to 82%, in Wales 69% and in Northern Ireland 58%. The Locked Out of the Labour Market report produces a number of recommendations for Government and BASE fully supports them. The recommendations link well with the proposals in the Access to Jobs campaign.

This paper explores 25 literature reviews and experimental studies on interventions that (could) successfully lead to the integration of disabled persons into the competitive labour market. In spite of the wide scope of health conditions and background characteristics of disabled persons, it is able to identify several ‘incentive boosters’:

(1) work modifications and employer support;

(2) empowerment of, and interaction between the disabled person, the family (in case of severe disabilities), the employer, and other stakeholders;

A high proportion of people with severe mental health problems are unemployed but would like to work. Individual Placement and Support (IPS) offers a promising approach to establishing people in paid employment. In a randomized controlled trial across six European countries, the economic case for IPS for people with severe mental health problems was investigated compared to standard vocational rehabilitation.

This research aimed to explore: 

• The models and approaches to delivery of supported internships available for young people with EHCPs in England. 
• The factors perceived to be associated with success for supported internships. 
• Perceived barriers to the success of supported internships, and how these may be overcome.