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Quality in Practice Stakeholders' view of supported employment initiatives - Quality criteria and development | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Project information from the management's perspective | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Introduction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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One of the main aims of QuiP is to define relevant quality criteria in SE
from the point of view of the respective stakeholders. The following summary -
apart from giving a first overview on projects involved - reflects the perspective
of the management from five initiatives in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Norway and the UK. The summary is based on questionnaires that were answered by all project representatives (mostly project leaders). As the projects are quite different in size and scope (national programmes as against local initiatives), with respect to organisational structures (public authorities, voluntary nonprofit) and development, it will be interesting to find out more about the different views and the modality in which the single projects present themselves, their aims and their approaches to quality assurance. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Table 1 gives an overview on quantitative developments of the single projects, all
of which started their activities around 1995 (see Table 2). All projects are
characterised by a rapid growth during this phase, both with respect to staff,
clients and budgets. A special case is Norway that is represented with a national
programme that is provided by public authorities. The programme was launched nationwide
after a model-project from 1993 to 1995. In the UK, an interesting case of
public-private partnership has been established, while all other initiatives are
voluntary nonprofit organisations that have established an SE branch. Table 1 Numbers of staff, clients and yearly budget 1996-2000
(1) This refers to the national programme of supported employment. Table 2 Year of foundation, legal status and target groups
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The approach to Supported Employment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All projects have their particular definition of SE. Common features are
however the support of clients and employers in finding and retaining
employment. The aim for all participating projects is to find a real,
paid job in an ordinary company with ongoing individual support (limited
in time). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The target groups of SE projects are generally all persons with a disability,
even though some initiatives do focus more on persons with mental illness or
learning disability (see Table 2 above). This choice partly depends on financing
mechanisms and/or respective goals of the projects. For instance,
Rytmus sustains the objective "to establish SE as a
tool of active labour market policies to help people from the target group to
gain and retain a job in the open labour market". Also
Salva Vita underlines the political goals in a mid-term perspective,
i.e. "to influence the national employment and social policies, respectively (...),
to change the attitude on the open labour market (...), and to introduce SE as a
new service in vocational rehabilitation". Most important, for all projects,
are the more general goals of social integration, inclusion and normalisation
for people with disabilities in working life and society. In order to reach these goals, main tasks of SE initiatives are listed in the following examples:
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Specific strengths of initiatives according to their managers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The specific strength of the initiatives involved include their "focus of interest
on the clients" and the empowerment of the client "to make good decisions based on
good information" (Arbeitsassistenz Liezen), "the involvement of employers right
from the start", "enthusiastic staff" (Rytmus), their uniqueness in "providing
supported employment for this target group" (Salva Vita), their ability to
"directly address the ordinary labour market" (Norway), and their uniqueness in
offering "in-depth work both prior and, more importantly, after the job has been
found" and to support "the employer and the employee to match commercial pressure
with individual workers' ambitions and skills" (Into Employment). While other organisations' focus often is either on traditional occupational therapy for persons with a learning disability or training for persons with mental illness, training in SE initiatives is only a small part of the support process. In Norway and in the English project "Into Employment" pre-training or preparation for work readiness is not even provided at all as all persons are believed to be "work ready", and that is the job of SE initiatives to offer the necessary support. A specific advantage of those initiatives that started "bottom-up" and not within a larger organisation with a long tradition in providing services to persons with disabilities, e.g. Rytmus, is that they did not have to overcome traditional thinking in providing services for people with disabilities. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Quality of Supported Employment: A management perspective on indicators and methods applied | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Defining quality of SE means, of course, to act in accordance with the objectives
of the service and with the expectations of the clients. Thus, professional support
for the target group, job finding and job maintenance are the indicators most
often mentioned by the managers. In this respect the Arbeitsassistenz Liezen, for
instance, is follows a well defined process flow-chart that is part of its
guidelines and concepts. Rytmus has developed a manual, quality standards and
guidelines; the quality control is carried out internally for lack of external
quality standards. Also Salva Vita is using self assessment methods adapted from
the EFQM model. Some main processes have already been documented and perspectives
are to build a quality system that follows TQM principles and methods. In addition, mutual satisfaction of all parties involved is underlined. For instance, Salva Vita carries out surveys based on 10 kinds of questionnaires to all stakeholders, including employees and funding authorities. The Norwegian partners stressed the quality indicator of job maintenance, in particular after a longer period (3 years). However, respective surveys or follow-up studies have not yet been carried out. Into Employment relies very much on customer satisfaction feedback (employers, employees and commissioners) that is also collected systematically by means of stakeholder groups ("partnership meetings"). Furthermore, new options on quality raising are regularly gained from other members of the national association of SE. At the Arbeitsassistenz Liezen quality in terms of job maintenance is monitored by systematic documentation and by means of group discussions to reflect on customer satisfaction. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Transfer and perspectives | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The core of our project is to look for opportunities of mutual exchange and
lessons ("good practice") to be learned from each other. Project partners
named quite a few issues in this connection: The Arbeitsassistenz Liezen,
for instance, is proud of its "systematic work with every client and the
systematic documentation of our work by a computer supported process", while
Rytmus defines its good practice witnessed by the "individual and civil
approach to each user, team work, supervision of the staff providing services,
ongoing support for the user, the consultation with the families of the users,
and respect for the individual". Salva Vita proposed especially its elaboration and introduction of a quality system as an aspect that could be transferred to other actors. Norwegian partners see the systematic approach (profiling, training and follow-up), organisation issues and the national guidelines as important characteristic to be transferred to other countries, especially as there is positive from using SE methods for people with a range of different disabilities (including social disabilities). Into Employment would propose to have a look at the partnership working they have introduced, i.e. shared paperwork, shared training, and shared recruitment. Nevertheless, there are also aspects in each organisation that could be improved and thus exchange of experience is most welcome. For instance, "increasing the quality of skills in the direct work with users at the work site, more detailed methodology, quality criteria with respect to family co-operation" (Rytmus), "developing quality standards with others" (Arbeitsassistenz Liezen), "different methods for job acquisition" (Norway), "giving the stakeholders more involvement in running the organisation" (Into Employment) Finally, project partners named several general issues on quality of SE which need to be discussed in the course of our project . Further exchange of experience should thus be organised on the following questions:
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