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How can we provide sustainable employment for ASD individuals?

spadger

Does anyone know of any projects running or due to start that focus on training and sustainable employability for autistic individuals? 

Their seems to be little real government policy regarding supporting and assisting the huge volume of unemployed ASD people into sustainable employment despite most of them wanting to be in employment. 

Considering the strengths ASD individuals can offer to employers given the appropriate support and training, it seems to me that society is missing out on a massive valuable untapped resource.

I think the challenge is to convince employers (and society in general) that many unemployed ASD people who want to work also have a lot to offer.

Once employers realise that ASD employees can potentially make their business more profitable then positive progress will be made.

Before that happens though employers themselves need to be educated to understand how to utilise these skills and create an ASD compatible environment.

Even before that educators / facilitators must provide a framework that allows this to happen.

A Danish organisation, Specialisterne (see below) has developed such a framework and I am currently investigating whether alternatives exist in the UK.

Specialisterne (Specialists), framework model assists ASD people into sustainable, professional, rewarding work (mainly testing software and data entry). http://specialistpeople.com/

In recent years they have also developed a franchise style partnership model and as such have expanded into a number of countries the nearest being Scotland. http://www.specialisternescotland.org/

As of this date I believe that they are the only organisation focusing on ASD employability who are currently operating in the UK but if you know any different would love to hear.

Parents

  • longman said:
    The next thing is teamwork. People on the spectrum are not designed to flourish in teamwork situations. But I'm afraid the days of the boffin beavering away in a little room are far in the past. Most work environments are team environments. They have to be to bring to the table a sufficient range of experience, skill and knowledge for any single objective. We don't tend to have jobs now that one person can do all on their own.

    I think this idea that we, on the spectrum, can't work in teams is a myth.

    Where we certainly don't thrive is in the (neuro)typical, competetive, 'team' environment of many modern workplaces, where 'being a team-player' seems to involve 'politics' and 'back-stabbing'.

    I have worked in teams in the IT industry (software development, to be precise), where there are a high number of people with (at the very least) autistic spectrum traits, and more often than not, teams operate more co-operatively, there's much less politics and backstabbing, and people work more as individual elements of a whole - often spending much time working 'by themselves' on assigned, or often chosen, tasks, and then coming together to get things done (rather than having endless pointless meetings).

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  • longman said:
    The next thing is teamwork. People on the spectrum are not designed to flourish in teamwork situations. But I'm afraid the days of the boffin beavering away in a little room are far in the past. Most work environments are team environments. They have to be to bring to the table a sufficient range of experience, skill and knowledge for any single objective. We don't tend to have jobs now that one person can do all on their own.

    I think this idea that we, on the spectrum, can't work in teams is a myth.

    Where we certainly don't thrive is in the (neuro)typical, competetive, 'team' environment of many modern workplaces, where 'being a team-player' seems to involve 'politics' and 'back-stabbing'.

    I have worked in teams in the IT industry (software development, to be precise), where there are a high number of people with (at the very least) autistic spectrum traits, and more often than not, teams operate more co-operatively, there's much less politics and backstabbing, and people work more as individual elements of a whole - often spending much time working 'by themselves' on assigned, or often chosen, tasks, and then coming together to get things done (rather than having endless pointless meetings).

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