Quality in Practice
Stakeholders' view of supported employment initiatives - Quality criteria and development



Background
Through their practical work, two Supported Employment initiatives involved in this project (Salva Vita/Hungary and Lebenshilfe Ennstal/Austria) have identified the need to analyse the principles of their work in detail, especially with respect to the views of the involved stakeholders.
Initiatives from countries with different levels of development of SE were invited to participate in the project. Two European-Union member countries (United Kingdom and Austria), two Accession-countries (Hungary and Czech Republic) as well as Norway are partners in the project.



Aims
  • improving the methods of SE in different European countries
  • defining relevant quality criteria in SE from the point of view of the different stakeholders (project managers, job facilitators, users, companies, public authorities etc.)
  • defining criteria for success of SE-projects other than pure quantitative measures
  • developing instruments for the ongoing evaluation of SE-projects
  • facilitating SE-projects to present and justify their work



Methods
In each country one Supported Employment project will be the focus of research carried out by a national research institute. A mix of qualitative and quantitative methods will be tailored to fit the needs of the involved stakeholders.
  • Group discussions, interviews as well as informal conversations will be used to elicit the views of people with disabilities, staff of SE-projects, employers as well as public authorities.
  • The international project meetings will enable participants to learn from each other and to analyse results from a comparative perspective.
  • A large conference with stakeholders from different countries will allow for feed-back of the results.



Products
  • a web-site (www.quip.at)
  • short summaries of each research phase
  • a final report describing the comparative research results
  • a brochure on the most important quality criteria for SE from the perspectives of the stakeholders
  • a description of the status quo in each involved Supported Employment project
  • a manual with various evaluation methods for improving the quality of Supported Employment projects and guidelines how to involve different stakeholders