1. We Can Work It Out Northamptonshire Learning Disability Partnership Board Andy Horwood 29 th March 2012

2. Valuing Employment Now says The Big Goal By 2025 we want more people with learning disabilities to have a job. We want these jobs to be 16 hours a week. At the moment only a very small number of people with learning disabilities have a job.

3. The Employment Plan - 1 More young people will leave school or college and get a paid job or voluntary work We said

4. We did... We talked with Further Education colleges to ask them to keep a list of where young people go when they finish their Essential Skills courses. This will tell us how many people are getting a job or voluntary work

5. We asked Connexions to start keeping a list of employers who are good at working with disabled young people We are working with Leicester to have Single Assessment process. This means that young people will only have to have one assessment that everybody can look at.

6. The single assessment is the work we are doing as we are part of a Government Pathfinder project. The assessment should be ready in the Summer of this year One assessment should mean that young people’s ideas and hopes about work will be known by everybody.

7. Inspire Me which is a national Mencap project is being run in local schools. Friars school Isebrook SEN college Northgate school (sixth form only). This will help young people think about what they want to do in the future about work and jobs.

8. The Employment Plan - 2 5 more people will use their personal budget to buy employment support or to set up a business We said

9. We did Worked with Care Management and 3 people who wanted and needed support to get work or work skills We have talked about the kinds of things the people wanted to achieve.

10. Some of the things people wanted were: Finding out about money and benefits Help with learning how to use buses Training and support in a job We have used the Partnership Board money to give people Personal Budgets to do this

11. This work has only just started so we cannot tell you at the moment if these things were achieved but the We Can Work It Out group will check. We hope to do some more of this, using the Partnership Board money to make it happen.

12. The Employment Plan - 3 40 more staff will have had Training in Systematic Instruction (TSI) to help them learn new skills. TSI is a way of helping people to learn new skills We said

13. We have only run one course for 12 people. The course was in February 2012 and we are waiting to hear what people thought of it. We had to work hard to fill the places and so we will not be putting on any more courses 40 people won’t be trained

14. The Employment Plan - 4 There will be a “pathway” for employment that is written down. This will tell people what should happen to help them get a job. There will also be better information to make sure that people understand the pathway We said

15. We did We have had 4 meetings and have got all of the information we need for a “Benefits Pathway “and an ‘Employment pathway’ The pathways will be written and drawn soon and will be sent to a mix of people to check if they are OK

16. Leicestershire have also been working on this so we will look at their work too Northamptonshire were part of a government project last year to help people get jobs. It was called Jobs First.

17. We have been talking to Remploy and the Kings College in London to help them write a report about Jobs First and how well it has done to help people get jobs. When the report is finished we will put it on the Partnership Board website

18. The Employment Plan - 5 2 more public organisations like councils and NHS will have easy read information and forms to help people found out and apply for jobs We said

19. We did Northampton Borough Council and Northamptonshire County Council are looking at ‘job carving’ Job carving can be used to change a job so that it is suitable for a particular worker

20. Kettering General Hospital are also hoping to have some jobs that are for people with a learning disability to apply for and they will be advertised soon. They are changing their job descriptions and forms so it easier for people to apply for the jobs

21. The Partnership Board has also brought together different ideas about Learning Disability awareness training We now have one pack that can be used by everybody to help run this training in different places Elaine Cummins has run a train the trainers course for this

22. There are people with a learning disability and others who know how to use the pack. The pack can be changed so it works for whoever you are training. This should help more people in public organisations feel good about supporting a worker with learning disability

23. Public organisations in Northamptonshire also have a new website where they advertise their jobs https://www.everyroadleadstous.co.uk https://www.everyroadleadstous.co.uk

24. Any questions? Your ideas...... We would like to know your ideas so could you please talk in groups and tell us: ?

25. 1.How can we better prepare young people (and their families) for the world of work? 2. What would help you to get a job? We will ask each group to feedback 2 ideas. Thank you