Welcome to Influencing and Informing

Engage to Change

Influencing and Informing Engage to Change recently secured commitment from the First Minister for Wales that learning and legacy from Engage to Change would be taken forward by Welsh Government and that from 2027 the new WG Employability Support Programme will include supported employment and specialist job coach support. Watch the First Minister’s announcement here.

Influencing and Informing was a partnership between Learning Disability Wales and NCMH at Cardiff University. We took forward the policy, research, and legacy work of the Engage to Change project. We advocated for a Wales National Job Coach Strategy.

We wanted:

• Children and young people who have learning disabilities to have access to individually tailored work experience placements in local businesses, supported by a job coach.
• Specialist job coach support for people with learning disabilities to be available through all Welsh Government funded employment, skills, and training programmes.
• Local authorities and Regional Partnership Boards to fund employment support for people with learning disabilities living in their area.
• Job coach support to be recognised as a profession with programmes and people providing job coach support working to the National Occupational Standards for supported employment and job coaches undertaking training in supported employment and systematic instruction.
• To make sure that people with learning disabilities, their families and others who support them know about pathways to employment and the support available to them.

To influence and inform others we:

• Continued to work with Welsh Government, Members of the Senedd, DWP, local authorities, health boards, colleges, and other organisations with the aim of ensuring that supported employment, which includes specialist job coach support, is funded and available across Wales.
• Shared information from the evaluation of the Engage to Change project to show what works and what is needed for people to get paid work.
• Shared the journeys of Engage to Change participants who took part in supported internships, supported apprenticeships and those who were supported to get paid work.
• Engaged with people with learning disabilities and families of people with learning disabilities.

The Engage to Change project successfully:

• Provided employment support to 1,300 young people with a learning difficulty, learning disability and/or autism over a 7- year period. The project had a success rate of 41% of young people securing a paid job, compared to a national average of 4.8%. This support finished on 31 May 2023.
• Worked with WG to ensure job coach support was available for Jobs Growth Wales+ and Supported Shared Apprenticeships
• Introduced supported internships to Wales that became part of the ILS Curriculum Pathway 4 delivered by all FE colleges across Wales

The project is no longer accepting referrals.

Looking back – Our Pathways to Employment Film:

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