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Description
The project starts from the risk of poverty for young people with autism and from their lack of integration on the labor market. The main causes underlying this reality are:
- poor inclusion conditions at the employer level - to prevent this situation, the project will collaborate with 10 companies to adopt inclusion policies and job accessibility strategies for people with autism;
- poor access to state facilities for inclusive companies, or discouraging facilities - the project will collect the needs and proposed solutions needed to cover them from company representatives, information that will be transmitted through an advocacy campaign to responsible institutions, local and central administrations, so as to support the interest of companies in making jobs accessible to people with autism;
- lack of partnerships between companies and non-profit organizations or specialists - the project aims to create an inclusion task force within the organization by training 3-5 specialists (organizational development component); they will advise companies to adopt inclusive policies and create job accessibility strategies for people with autism. In addition, inclusion specialists will design a training program for facilitators for assisted employment. 20 people will be trained as facilitators and the training program will continue after the completion of the project.
In parallel, 30 young people and adolescents with autism from the Help Home program (independent living skills program for young people with Autism Spectrum Disorder) will enter a professional training program for the development of work skills for jobs they prove interest or talent. At the end, a mini-internship in inclusive companies for 3-5 people with autism will be implemented.
Summary of project results
The project started from the identified need of young people with autism to find a job and have a more independent life. However, the access to a job does not exist, in the absence of an approach that also include companies.
The project aimed and succeeded in developing partnerships with 10 companies, where the whole recruitment and retention process was made accessible. To address identified needs, the Project Promoter has increased its organisational capacity and expertise by: Deploying a team of inclusion / accessibility specialists; Developing and adopting an Inclusion Policy; Developing and sustaining a course for volunteers to be able to assist people with autism who are employed; Developing an integrated intervention plan at both company and individual level that can be replicated in future projects. As for the project beneficiaries and responding to their need to know in detail how to access the labour market, the project organised a training programme for 30 young people with autism. The lack of awareness on autism has effects also at the legislative level, where the project aimed to intervene through advocacy (memo to the authorities with responsibilities in the field) to support the process of accessibility through stable partnerships between the state, company and employees, rewarding facilities and insertion programs.
After applying the online questionnaire addressed to young people with ASD, the profile of jobs that meet their needs has been obtainded, helping later in placing them for the most suitable jobs. Furthermore, following the training programme for young people with autism, 3 of the young beneficiaries were employed in companies within the project, and another 3 were in the process of being employed at the end of the project. In the meantime, in order to make sure the companies were prepared, a process started from raising awareness of employees and management, through the inclusion policy and workplace accessibility strategies, through the recruitment process, the job interview, the accessibility of tasks, work spaces and working hours, the training of the team and the appointment of a mentor.