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

  1. Adults standing in a circle and talking to each other about their mental wellbeing. There is a staff member sitting to the left of them in the frame sitting next to a table. The community centre is located in Seaton Deleval in the North East of England.

    What is the left for?: The case for a politics of reciprocism

    Liberal democratic capitalism has failed to give many people good lives, and the future looks less promising than the past. 

  2. Wildfires and climate change | Dave Hawkey from IPPR Scotland speaks to Lewis Goodall on LBC

    Europe’s heatwaves and the wildfires in the Cairngorms are a stark reminder that climate extremes are here.  The Scottish government must act now with a clear plan to prepare for what's coming.

  3. “I feel quite unsettled and unsafe”: Young people, belonging, and the broken promise of childhood

    Young people in England feel less secure, supported and connected than a decade ago. Based on nearly 200 conversations, this blog explores why childhood feels more stressful and less joyful.