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Quality in Practice Stakeholders' view of supported employment initiatives - Quality criteria and development | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The countries' national background | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Introduction to national backgrounds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The ensuing national reports are to provide a general overview on policies for
disabled persons, in particular focusing on employment policies and supported
employment in the participating countries. They are based on the questionnaires
filled out by the researchers or projects in the first project phase.
Table 1 shows some general data for Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Norway and the UK with respect to these issues. Population, number of (registered) persons with disabilities, unemployment
Source: National reports.- (1) unemployed persons with disabilities (registered); (2) Unemployed persons with disabilities according to the definition of the Employment Service; (3) Number of persons with "altered working capacity". As almost the whole variety of Welfare regimes is represented by the participating countries, it is worthwhile to describe, first, some main differences concerning the scope of benefits, the mix between various providers of services and the specific approaches to disability policies. While in Norway , as a representative of Nordic welfare regimes, a wide scope of services and benefits is provided exclusively by statutory bodies, Austria represents a mixed system of publicly financed but to a large extent third-sector provided services. The United Kingdom has experienced an increasingly important role of voluntary non-profit providers in the field of disability services since the Government's decision to contract out local authority services in the early 1990's (1). A somehow similar development could be observed in CEE countries as Hungary and the Czech Republic. In Hungary, the recent Act on Private Non-Profit Organisations (1998) allows for a regulated contracting of NGOs that had started to mushroom since the early 1990's compensating for the lack of statutory provision. Financial support for these activities by the state has grown significantly during that period. In the Czech Republic , in 1999, 82.9% of services for persons with disabilities are provided by public bodies (out of which 35.4% by local authorities), 10.4% by church organisations and 6.7% by other non-governmental organisations. Thus, even if the importance of the state's role providing services is reduced it is almost exclusively public authorities that are funding and regulating these services - with the exception of Norway, where both funding and provision is exclusively defined as a statutory obligation. In most countries the role of employers is mainly to fulfil obligations that are linked to quota schemes, i.e. compulsory employment (especially for medium and large sized firms) and/or respective payments in case of non-compliance to these regulations. Only in the UK, there are tendencies of employers taking a lead in corporate equal opportunities recruitment. This also has to do with a larger focus on corporate social responsibility in the UK, an issue which is less common in the other participating countries (in Norway, this is also due to the generally low unemployment rate). While in the CEE countries the traditional approach to disability policies, characterised by a high degree of institutionalisation and segregation, is progressively replaced by more integrative approaches, we witness policies based on equal rights and anti-discrimination legislation in particular in Norway and, to a lesser degree, in Austria and the UK. Accordingly, one can find a higher amount of separated services and institutions for persons with disabilities in CEE countries, whereas in Norway - in spite of a large range of special rehabilitation schemes for persons with disabilities - it is more common to have persons with disabilities participating in integrated labour market programmes. However, as the transformation process in CEE countries is gaining grounds, we can witness a rapid development towards equal opportunities approaches. For instance, the Czech Constitutional Law, of which the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one part, guarantees the non-discrimination of persons with disabilities. In Hungary, a National Council for Disabled Persons was installed in 1998. A common feature to all countries remains the difficulty of defining disabilities and respective entitlements to benefits and services. Given the fact that even within countries there exist different legal regulations with various definitions according to policy areas (schooling, rehabilitation, invalidity pension benefits, employment, care etc.) it seems impossible to find a common denominator for even five countries only. Even the - in itself problematic - definition of disability in terms of "reduced ability to work" is interpreted in different ways: while in the Czech Republic, full "invalidity" and respective entitlements are attributed if a person has less then 66% of working ability, in Norway only persons with less than 50% of working ability may register as persons with a disability. In Austria registration as a person with disability does not depend on reduced working capacity. Here, people with a medical degree of disability over 50% are eligible to register. In Hungary, entitlements differ for persons with a reduced working ability of 40%, 50%, 67% or 100%. In addition, Norwegian legislation also acknowledges "social" disability, however without ascribing percentages concerning the ability to work. Similar regulations can be found in the UK.
Basic regulations in employment policies | |
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| In spite of the above mentioned differences it still has to
be recognised that the mainstream instruments for integrating persons with disabilities
into employment remain traditional approaches in the framework of "positive action".
This means that most countries have quota schemes, registration of persons with disabilities,
special protection against dismissal, sheltered work and - to some degree - assistance for
the adaptation of work places. In addition, Norway, the Czech Republic and Hungary have integrated regulations concerning persons with disabilities in their General Employment Acts. Hungary has also introduced an Act for Promoting and Providing Employment for Unemployed Persons. The Austrian legal framework is characterised by the Disabled Persons' Employment Act. The UK, apart from the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons' Act (1970) has also introduced a Disability Discrimination Act (1995) and a Disability Rights Commission Act (1999).
Supported Employment in five European countries | |
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| Supported Employment (SE) is growingly acknowledged as an
important tool for vocational rehabilitation in the participating countries even if its
scope, its definition and respective legal regulations vary between and even within
countries (see below). This development has taken place in particular since the beginning
of the 1990s when SE initiatives started to introduce this innovative method of vocational
rehabilitation. In the Czech Republic, SE has first been introduced in 1995 by "Rytmus", a non-governmental organisation that was inspired by SE experiences in the US, which is the Czech partner in this project. In the meantime, the number of providers has grown to at least 12. An official definition of SE is currently under discussion. In Hungary, the Ministry of Labour has been using the term "Supported Employment" since 1998 in a wider sense for all measures provided by the Labour Market Office, i.e. vocational rehabilitation, guidance, job search, subsidies for employment of persons with disabilities, and technical adaptation. A more strict definition is used, however, by single providers (see "Salva Vita"). In Austria, SE was initiated in 1992 by two official model projects catering to persons with a mental illness. Several other initiatives by voluntary agencies followed and organised a first meeting of SE initiatives in 1993. Since 1995, when Austria joined the European Union, supported employment has expanded significantly. In Norway, SE has been offered "as an initiative which shall contribute to helping people with vocational disabilities to obtain and to retain work in the open labour market" since 1996 on a regular basis, following a model project phase between 1992 and 1995. In the UK, SE has already a somewhat longer history since the mid 1980's, when a voluntary agency initiated SE for all persons with a learning disability. In 1994, the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) amalgamated the Sheltered Placement Scheme (SPS), a wage subsidy programme, with funding for Sheltered Workshops to produce a more flexible service under the umbrella of the Supported Employment Programme (SEP). The Department of Health is funding for SE initiatives that are complying to the definition of the Association for Supported Employment ( http://www.afse.org.uk) and the one applied in this Leonardo Project. In the meantime, these latter SE initiatives have grown to more than 200 providers offering support to about 11,000 persons at any one time all over the UK. As a corollary, it can be said that in most countries SE initiatives have developed "bottom-up", starting by pioneers from the voluntary sector. Only in Norway, and to a certain extent in Austria, SE was initiated by the Employment Service and developed on local levels within a national framework project. However, during the past 10-15 years statutory programmes in the area of vocational rehabilitation have increasingly acknowledged SE approaches and methods with some impact from EU programmes that provided for an exchange of experiences and the dissemination of adequate methods.
Legal framework of Supported Employment | |
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| In Austria
, the Disabled Persons Employment Act states that SE
is to be subsidised. There are special guidelines stating the task and the target group,
financial matters and reporting system. SE projects have to offer open access to the target
group, and they have to employ professionals offering advice and counselling. One
job-assistant should support 20 persons, and not longer than one year. In the Czech Republic, there is no definition of SE to be found in legislation. In practice, it is seen as a series of services targeted at supporting persons with disabilities to find and keep a job on the open labour market with ordinary wages. The support provided depends on individual needs and abilities and is restricted in time. In Hungary, the wide definition of SE is stated in a Decree from the Ministry of Labour (1998) but includes all kinds of measures in the area of vocational rehabilitation. With the development of the Supported Employment Programme by the Department of Education and Employment, there exist also in the UK at least two different definitions of SE: the Department for Education and Employment has regional Disability Service Teams employing Disability Employment Advisers who act as gatekeepers for Access to Work contracts that can fund a wide range of supports for disabled people who gain employment for more than 16 hours per week. People with learning disability are vastly under-represented in these mainstream DfEE programmes. Programmes following the AfSE definition, and thus the internationally recognised formula, conceive SE as an activity of adequately trained staff to support the job seeker in finding a real job that is remunerated with minimum wage or above with an ordinary employer. In addition, appropriate support should be provided to both the employer and the job seeker. The Norwegian definition of SE has been legally regulated in the "Regulation for SE" with a respective directive and guidelines focus on normalisation and inclusion, and ordinary, paid jobs supported by job facilitators. The target group are all persons with extensive disabilities. While initially the largest group were people with learning disabilities, today it is mostly persons with mental illness who are supported. An important feature of SE in Norway is that each job coach is responsible for working with 5-6 job seekers at any given time, and that the time limitation for each job seeker's participation in SE is 3 years.
Financing of Supported Employment | |
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| Financing is mainly provided by public authorities on national,
regional and local levels, and/or by Employment Services. In addition, EU Programmes provide
for some funding (about 12% in the UK), as well as donations and contributions from
foundations (in particular in CEE countries). In the UK, there also seems to be evidence
that persons with disabilities are partially also using their cash benefits to co-finance
supported employment. In Austria, an additional source for funding consists also in the Ausgleichstaxfonds gathering those taxes that are paid by employers that do not comply with the obligation to employ persons with disabilities according to the quota scheme.
Current developments and perspectives | |
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| A general move towards social inclusion and equal opportunity
policies can be observed in all countries involved. Current debates concerning policies for
persons with disabilities are focusing on normalisation and the extension and/or improvement
of Supported Employment programmes. For instance, in the Czech republic improvements concerning the definition of persons with disabilities are debated. It has been proposed to give a decisive role to medical experts from the labour exchange offices. Further improvements concern the possibility to participate in rehabilitation measures or training even if the person with a disability is on sickness leave and to work without any income limit while receiving partial invalidity pension. Finally, legal regulations for a new programme on "Supported Employment" are being prepared. In the UK, the Policy Consortium for Supported Employment has recently been commissioned by the Minister for Disability in the DfEE to publish a national framework document for the implementation of supported employment. However, this discussion document is not likely to be incorporated into DfEE policy in the short term. At the same time, the DfEE's newest initiative entitled "New Deal" is being piloted for disabled persons focusing on the provision of Personal Advisors to provide a more co-ordinated service to job seekers. In addition, the Government's ÔWelfare to Work' policy demands each public authority to compile a three year ÔWelfare to Work Joint Investment Plan' that had to be submitted by April 2001. Local partnerships between all sectors were demanded to promote initiatives to assist disabled persons into the labour market. A problem of this generally welcome initiative might be that it forces persons with disabilities to work and to give up entitled benefits. In Austria SE is expanding rapidly. Currently an umbrella organisation for supported employment is being founded in Austria. A government programme has just been initiated to improve the employment of people with disabilities ("Behindertenmilliarde"), this will also improve funding for supported employment initiatives. In Hungary, it has to be seen whether the growing NGO sector and the tangible results of third sector initiatives will get further acknowledged and supported by public policies and respective financing. In Norway SE has been established successfully as a part of the public employment authorities, and thus as a public service. The role of third sector initiatives thus lies predominantly with advocacy and the political representation of clients. As a conclusion, there is still a long way to go to define common denominators for disability policies in the EU and adhesion countries. This is especially true for the SE sector that in some countries is still in a pioneering phase, in others it has entered a more mature phase. Thus , we are working towards a more common understanding of SE, its structural framework, definitions and methods. (1) In Essex, for example, the county wide 'Into Employment' supported employment service was set up through a two year development contract awarded to the local Realife voluntary sector development agency. |