Plans that work: Employment outcomes for people with learning disabilities
Article
Many of us have some form of learning disability. If you are one of these people, you are less likely to live an independent life, and you are significantly less likely to have a job. This short paper considers whether the additional support that is provided to children and young people with learning disabilities helps them properly prepare for adulthood, and considers how it might have to change to better achieve this.
While being in paid work is neither necessary nor desirable for everyone in society, many people with learning disabilities would like to work. Increasing employment among people with learning disabilities, as part of a wider range of social changes to enable them to live more independent, fulfilling and secure lives, brings considerable benefits to the individual, to employers and to society as a whole.
Yet employment rates for those with learning disabilities are persistently and extremely low.
This paper explores the barriers to employment for people with learning disabilities, principally in relation to support for children and young people with special educational needs (SEN), and sets out recommendations for change.
Related items
Transformed by AI: How generative artificial intelligence could affect work in the UK – and how to manage it
Technological change is a good thing. It has brought exponential gains to living standards and is the foundation of modern society. Yet unmanaged technological change has always come with risks and disruptions.Celebrating 20 years of IPPR North
For two decades IPPR North has been at the centre of the debate about how to rebalance England's regions. Here we take stock of how far we have come and the role we have played in shaping the "levelling up" debate.Costing the Rwanda plan
Total payments to Rwanda for removing this cohort of people could range between £1.1 billion and £3.9 billion.