Decent work is for everyone – including People with Disabilities

1. Decent work is for everyone – including People with Disabilities Christy Lynch Marion Wilkinson

2. Comprehensive Employment Strategy - Policy background • Sectoral Plan 2006 • NDA paper – A Strategy of Engagement • Work of interdepartmental group + consultative forum on employment of pwd • Transfer of functions • National Disability Strategy Implementation Plan – pwd have access to jobs • Review of Adult Day Services – New Directions

3. UN Convention on DisabilityArticle 27 • Right to work, on an equal basis with others • Effective access to vocational guidance, placement, and training • Promote employment through affirmative action and other measures • Provide reasonable accommodation at work • Promote work experience in open labour market

4. Low participation in work • People with disabilities are only half as likely to have a job • Strong link between education and employment • Strong link between no job and poverty • 60% of people with disabilities not working are restricted in type or amount of work they can do • But 15% of those who have difficulty working are in a job

5. Employment rates 2011aged 20 to 64

6. Vision - draft • People with disabilities can get a job and enjoy a rewarding career Focus • Lifecycle focus – from birth, through school, into adult life. • People with disability from birth + those with acquired disabilities

7. Values 1- • People with disabilities are enabled to have jobs, earn a living and make a contribution • People with disabilities are supported to maximise their potential • The focus is on a person’s capacity not their incapacity • The strategy covers people across the spectrum of disability

8. Values 2 – • It pays to have a job • People with disabilities get the supports they need to work • Support systems that cross departmental or agency boundaries are mutually coherent and provide a joined-up system and joined-up pathways • Actions in this Strategy are built into the mainstream national employment strategy

9. Draft strategic priorities • SP1 Build skills, capacity and independence • SP2 Provide bridges and supports into work • SP3 Make work pay • SP4 Promote job retention and re-entry to work • SP5 Provide co-ordinated and seamless support • SP6 Engage employers

10. ICTU - Specific actions • Suggestions from today, • Top priorities under the which strategic priority? • What is the role that trade unions can play? • Specific actions under the return to work/ job retention priority? • Recruitment of people with disabilities in the public service – post embargo? ideas