Evolution in career perspectives
This chapter will review evolutions in career perspectives, and look at a range of subjects such as keeping persons with disabilities busy, and offering quality support that empowers them in their chosen careers. The evolution that has taken place over the last 25 years can be charted on three levels:
1. The positive degree: (from (ergo)therapy over activity to work)
In the past in most countries, the care sector was mainly active in the fields of everyday life, education and health. Activity and work for persons with disabilities were seen as effective methods of enhancing the effects of therapy and/or as a means of improving integration.
However clients and professionals in specialised centres for vocational training began to feel that it was important for such actions and initiatives to make a greater impact, and to have their positive integration effects extended.
They wanted:
- improvements in regulations that would allow them to do and work more on an individual level
- the development of more empowering training methods
- the availability of training outside the training centre or simulated enterprise
- greater employer involvement and government support in laws and regulations
In sheltered workplaces some actions were taken, for example actions enabling clients to work in ‘clusters’ in ‘normal’ companies. Local and European Social Fund initiatives promoted new ideas and concepts which fostered this change in trend.
2. The comparative degree: (from work to jobs)
Employment is central to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in society. Over the course of the last 20 years our society has experienced a wave of changes and paradigm shifts with regard to the following topics:
a. Status: How people in sheltered workplaces are viewed has evolved. They are now considered to have a job. This is clear from the fact that unions are now willing to represent their rights as workers, and campaign for their equal pay and status. Individuals in vocational training organisations have become clients with needs beyond that of simple training.
b. The capability of the integration services: For example, vocational training centres have become organisations offering a wide range of support actions. There is a growing tendency to offer modules and create individually-tailored pathways containing modules specifically designed for the individual. This way of working is demanding for organisations, and again makes integration and/or cooperation between organisations necessary.
c. Time factor: Integration services originally focused on training and teaching in order to improve employability. Some training programmes could take up to two years or more. Changing these methods and adopting an individual approach has shortened the time spent in vocational training centres in Flanders (Belgium) from two years to an average of less than one year for example, and this average is still decreasing. Some governments have also made it clear in their regulations that they favour the short track model over the intense training and off-the-job preparation of the older one.
d. Methodology: Where originally vocational training centres offered demonstration, training, and teaching, now job-coaching, job-finding, job-trajectory or pathway counselling is often available. Apprenticeships in enterprises, on-the-job training, finding and maintaining jobs have all gradually become the more important exercises.
Supported employment increased in some countries in the early 1990s. Elsewhere other approaches were adopted, for example guidance services were established to encourage people to find jobs.
e. Professionalism: In former times teachers and trainers were the specialists in this topic; nowadays more people are needed who can coach and mediate with employers.
f. Aim: There is a move away from training and teaching which takes place only ‘off-the job’, towards training which incorporates more activities aiming at securing paid jobs, and if possible ‘good jobs’ in ‘normal companies’.
g. Definitions, legislation and regulation:
Disability. In the past, disability (personal) was seen as disabling in itself. Increasingly, disability is being viewed as the outcome of the interactions (Person x Environment) between:
• health conditions (disorders, injuries)
• internal personal factors (e.g. age, coping mechanisms, social background, education, profession, past and present experience, overall behaviour pattern) and
• external environmental factors ( social attitudes, architectural characteristics,
legal and social structures)
Who is disabled, or who is to benefit from special support actions for the disabled? We were used in the past to definitions of physical, psychic, mental and sensorial disabilities being given in terms of percentages: some actions were available for people with an IQ below 80 for example. Now, the impact of the disability on the individual person’s life and job is taken into account. The impact of the loss of a part of one finger is different for a guitar player than for a person with another occupation for example. In the Netherlands and Belgium, a new term has even been coined; “arbeidshandicap” (labour market disability)
Reasonable accomodation. The definition of reasonable accomodation has also changed. Every employee has the right to reasonable accomodation of their workplace. This is an adaptation that does not lead to a disproportionate burden or a burden that cannot sufficiently be compensated by existing measures or regulation. For example, when applying for a job it seems reasonable that a visually-impaired person should receive the questions in written tests in Braille or in large print, and that a deaf person should receive a sign language interview in an accessible place.
It is now normal to provide accomodations and aids to the workplace and its surroundings where people with a disability work. There needs to be a regulation whereby neither the employer nor the employee is obliged to pay for these accomodations. Of course, the use of the term ‘reasonable accomodation’ will inevitably lead to differences of opinions regarding what is reasonable in certain situations. When in doubt this should be dealt with by the courts.
3. The superlative degree: (from jobs to career perspectives)
One of the aims of the European community has been to increase activity in the labour market. More people have to be active these days, and have to remain so a lot longer than in the past. In order to sustain this it is necessary that long-term careers remain attractive and challenging. However, with an ageing population it is only natural that physical problems and disabilities will increase. Professionals in organisations offering employment support can play an important role in this respect. Of course the highest quality in employment support actions will also be necessary. This can be achieved by raising standards with regard to career goals for individuals in general. This means investing not only in good training or even in good jobs. We should look at the how the energy companies invest in the careers of their high potential employees for example. They often receive a mentor in the company that helps them achieve their career goals within it. They can rely on the support of highly-trained human resource professionals inside the company, and earn enough money to pay for external support.
The job and career opportunities of persons with disabilities are most at risk. Discrimination is not simply ended by the provision of ‘training’ and ‘jobs’. Persons with disabilities have the right to the same expectations and career perspectives as other individuals. The promotion of equal career perspectives and opportunities is the best way to promote equal rights, to make integration a reality, and to avoid negative experiences which can cause people to leave the labour market and not return. Carefully chosen individualised actions which aim at broadening career opportunities are the best way to promote efficient and successful integration into the labour market, and the best way to deal with problems during a career.
Over the last few decades, other changes have taken place too: paradigms have shifted and even reversed, and new conditions, definitions and regulations have emerged. One paradigm shift is that service providers have changed from being service-orientated to being demand-orientated. Another has been the change from product-orientated or phase-oriented approaches towards result, pathway & career–orientated approaches. This, as well as the growing impact of liberalisation on the market of employment-support, dramatically influenced the NGOs which were offering support. But they were also provided with many opportunities, and were enabled to develop and experiment with the help of the European Social Fund and the Horizon, Equal and Leonardo projects. They undoubtedly also felt the effect of this liberalisation on their regulation and on national regulations, with its growing structures, red tape and administration however.
These challenges presented us with as many opportunities as it did threats. For persons with disabilities it was similar, and changes also created opportunities. There are now much more persons with disabilities who have access to a wide range of support actions. A client is no longer regarded as a helpless disabled person who needs our help. He or she has become a person with a disability, but also a person with a lot of abilities. Change can present threats, yet there is often a solution to these threats if it is sought.
If a person:
- is blind and is working happily until the company he or she works for changes the computers and software, is there specialised training, not only for all the company personnel, but for this blind person too? Will he or she be demoted?
- with an autism-spectrum disorder has become used to cooperating with a certain member of staff, and works well until the company is restructured and this person is changed to another workplace, will he or she have the right to ask for a specialised coach in order to help him or her cope with change and train the next co-worker?
- is working and sees that extra training and lifelong learning is required in order to advance in his or her career, shouldn’t he or she have the right to this specialised training support?
- feels better again after a period spent in a psychiatric ward, but is working as a clerk below his or her qualification-level because it seemed difficult to start working again as a solicitor, can he or she make a career-move, or would it provoke the same problems again? Shouldn’t he or she have the right to talk with a career-counsellor who is familiar with him or her and/or with psychiatric diseases?
Career and perspectives:
The word career refers to the period between leaving school and retirement. It also implies the possibility of making the most money and having important jobs. With career perspectives people have to feel that they are making the best of their career, i.e. that they:
- Are happy with the work and working conditions
- Know where to find answers to work-related questions
- Have the feeling that their talents are reflected in their work and career
- Know they can rely on subsidised and professional support if a negative development in their personal circumstances takes place.
- Know they can rely on a career counsellor when the conditions in their present job are changing in such a way that their present and future job prospects are in jeopardy.
- Have the feeling that their current job is a personal choice.
- Don’t have the feeling that when this job ends the future becomes uncertain.
- Are empowered in such a way that they can feel multiple job changes are a result of choice and flexibility. (‘They who undertake everything are seldom successful’ does not apply here.)
- Feel that staying in a particular company is the result of choice and not (only) of the fear of not being able to look for and find another job.
- Regard their career as more than a cycle of jobs, unemployment, and work experience
- Do not feel discriminated against in their career-opportunities because of their disability.
- ….
In case help is needed, counsellors can always be asked to help people in:
- Being able to communicate and talk about their career
- Putting their experiences in perspective
- Giving feed-back on real and unreal perspectives
- Being aware of career anchors
- Having the possibility of updating their career record (and course)
- Being pro-active in their career
- Keeping the balancing between ‘who am I’ ‘What can I do’ and ‘what do I want to do?’
- Organising their current career situation
- Using life-long learning actions
- ….
Support and impact on career perspectives:
There is a need to spread a better understanding of several elements in the field of health conditions (this is limited but important). For example, the importance of internal personal factors like autonomy and (sometimes structural) external environmental factors could be stressed in order to maximise the impact of support. This would raise awareness of the need for people to be willing to do advocacy work on behalf of clients with disabilities and to take part in the organisation of stakeholder forums. The result of such actions would be greater network cooperation and greater levels of support (vocational training and other actions) at different stages of people’s careers; on-the-job training, sheltered working on the work floor of enterprises etc.
It is also important to mention the transition from school to work. Already a lot of work has been done to ease and facilitate this transition, and attempts to create Individual Transition Plans and provide follow-up care have been made.
Health conditions:
- It is obvious that the different stakeholders involved must cooperate closely with each other
- People who are in need of a career reorientation require a different approach form young people entering the labour market. Health conditions can play a major role.
- An individual approach is necessary in modular actions in individually-composed pathways; for some people a period of apprenticeship or some help in finding a suitable job gave good results, while for some others it was necessary to organise training and follow up they found a real job.
- The timespan of employment support actions should ideally be matched to individual needs.
Enhance autonomy actively in the person with a disability:
This can be achieved by focusing on empowerment, self-steering and motivation.
Empowerment:
- of the individual can be strengthened. But individuals can also be made aware of ways in which conditions which encourage empowerment can be improved in companies. Sometimes a question or a friendly word is enough. Sometimes recourse to the legal system is required in order to alter conditions.
- will above all have a major impact on the integration and career-opportunities of persons with disabilities.
- People with a disability should be taught ways to cooperate in stakeholder forums on an individual level.
Self-steering:
In order to make our clients stronger there is a need to ensure an environment in which a high degree of autonomy is granted, so that their self-steering capacities are protected and enhanced. Someone self-steers their career when they are able to follow a chosen path which takes into account their strengths and weaknesses, interests and values both inside and outside the organisation.
Even if a disability means that someone will never drive a car, as many people as possible should be in the driving seat of their own careers. Support should be organised in a holistic way. We should not allow clients to develop the ‘pinball syndrome’ – the feeling that they are ‘pinballs’ of the support ‘machine’, and that the professionals are the only real players (i.e. when a client loses a job, the professionals will take over again and again, and so on).
On the contrary, the person should increasingly steer his or her own career, and be able to decide to choose to work together with our professionals at one or more stages of their career trajectory.
Motivation:
In the equal project ‘E quality career time’ some scientific research was conducted into the factors which influence the careers of persons with disability. It showed that there is often a lack of motivation in this group regarding careers. Career satisfaction rises according to the number of years a person has worked. The priority of this group is not to ‘get a job’, but if they find a suitable job, they often go for it and prove to be very loyal to it.
Enhance autonomy actively in institutions / professionals, instruments, texts, procedures:
Why does support not start from a culturally-inclusive and disability-sensitive basis? Suit your organisation to the needs of persons with disabilities and not vice versa! Such a step would be easier if one viewed persons with disabilities as having an individual status and different individual aspirations of their own, rather than being simply a step in a programme. Persons with disabilities can be at different stages in their careers: from imagining the kind of work they will do in the future, to informing themselves on this work, choosing, obtaining, maintaining or even leaving a job because of age or changed physical or other circumstances. Sometimes they find themselves in between two different stages: for example, maintaining a job in order to increase their opportunities of finding another.
Integral integration in employment means not accepting ‘a job’ or ‘some job’ or the ‘job - no job - job - no job – JOJO’ cycle as a final result. A support organisation should look at the bigger picture. Is this career step suitable for the career of the person as a whole? Is there a need to counsel our persons with disabilities with regard to whole career trajectories?
The temptation to deliver results simply to satisfy regulation is great, as it is in general easier, more comfortable and more economical to limit oneself simply to ‘fulfilling the conditions of the contract’.
Career-focused quality can be time-consuming, and its effects difficult to monitor. Yet what is being advocated here is just that: working with the career perspectives of the client as an individual, mapping problems, signalling them to the authorities, and applying for specific subsidies in stakeholder forums.
Empowerment:
Organisations offering support to persons with disabilities should be active in the promotion of empowering conditions. Organisations should make sure that documents are available and accessible for these persons and for the employers. They should make sure the language used is comprehensible and that the communication is empowering and takes place in empowering conditions.
- The empowerment of persons with disabilities seeking equal opportunities on the labour market will help us realise the economic targets of the European Union.
- The empowerment of persons with disabilities and structural stakeholder cooperation will improve participation opportunities on the labour market, have a positive effect on the economy, and lower costs for support structures.
- Empowerment will above all have a major impact on the integration prospects and the career opportunities of persons with disabilities.
- Empowerment is a policy that should be made into a reality by us in the European Union. In order to realise empowerment all stakeholders need to communicate, cooperate and act in such a way as to impact upon the individual, the support organisations, the structures and society.
- The realisation of empowerment should be reflected in a structural way by organizing stakeholder participation in most fora in the European Union and by active participation in them by all stakeholders and/or their mandated representatives. This participation should take place on European, national, regional and local levels, and where useful on an individual level within the support structures and organisations. The stakeholder participation should be organised in a structured way at the information, communication and decision-making levels.
- In order to promote the empowerment of persons with disabilities, more concrete descriptions of how to prevent discrimination, how to promote diversity, and how to monitor/measure the actions taken in organisations are necessary.
Self-steering: In order to make the clients stronger the organisation needs to offer a climate in which they are granted a high degree of autonomy, so that their self-steering capacities can be protected and improved. Someone is self-steering in their career when they are able to follow the course that allows them to build on own strengths and weaknesses, interests and values, both inside and outside the organisation.
Motivation: We aim for higher quality standards in organisations and in support provided. This can be achieved by setting higher expectations of standards in general, which in turn requires the improvement of career perspectives as a whole. In other words, the goal of a support organization or of a support professional should not be that of simply ‘finding a job’ for the person with a disability, but rather that of finding them a suitable job.
It is better to think in terms of ensuring a good start or re-start to a career, or a successful transition. Keeping career perspectives in mind will help to avoid dead-end job-choices. It will also help to ensure the best support possible, since support should have a long term effect. A person supported in such way as to enable him or her to make decisions and set targets for the future with his or her whole career in mind will be a more empowered and thus more motivated person.
A long time ago the Chinese had three curses they wished upon enemy:
1) May you live in interesting times
2) May you come to the attention of those in authority
3) May you find what you are looking for
We are lucky enough to live in interesting times, in a period when so many changes and paradigm shifts are taking place. This has however resulted in many challenges for organisations offering
support. At times, it has even felt like a curse.
And we came to the attention of those in authority. The continuous changes in regulation and the increase in red tape have presented many organisations and professionals with formidable challenges. These challenges exist also in the field of our own human resources. But they also offer many opportunities to change and modify our organisations. They provided us with opportunities to increase the quality of the support delivered. They allowed us to cooperate with persons with disabilities and employers to provide skilled labour for an innovative and sustainable Europe, and to contribute to a labour market where motivated persons with disabilities have career perspectives as bright as anyone else’s. Now, most importantly, the challenge is to increase the quality of the support staff and professionals, so that their aim is not just that of training and helping persons with disabilities to ‘find a job’, but of helping them to discover their true career perspectives and potential.
Such a vision of support for career perspectives can help us counter the challenges. It will help us in the future to develop all necessary support elements that are needed for preventative actions.
Preventative actions are necessary in order to avoid negative results such as a developing disability, or the worsening of existing ones. Let us create preventative support that prevents people from leaving a position, a job, a company or the labour market too soon.
Let us avoid all discrimination and create a support network that enables persons with disabilities to realise their abilities throughout their whole career.
So may one finds what one is looking for.
This chapter has given us a few hints on how to tackle the challenges presented by the ever shifting paradigm, and has dealt with subjects such as occupational activities and real career choices and opportunities. Being able to choose one’s own job is central to each individual’s needs, with or without a disability. And as it is not always simple for persons with disabilities to get the job that they hope for, lifelong learning opportunities are even more important for them. These will be the subject of the chapter that follows.
Back