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WORK

management and mentoring come from understand that the expectation is training, literacy and maths skills, social
within the host organization, as they full-time employment in a real job and skills instruction and guarantees of a‘safe’
would for any other employee. escape from the benefits system. environment before they can even walk
Families sometimes have to undergo through the doors of an employer.
The jobs that people secure are often not a similar journey of transformation to We have heard that there must be job
what stereotypical assumptions might change their own expectations. segmentation (such as doing the
suggest. They work across all areas of the There is, of course, a need for adaptation, photocopying) rather than a full job role,
hospital, including contracted out adjustment and learning, on both sides, as people only have limited skills.
services. One person is processing blood as people integrate into the workforce. Their families won’t let them work
and fluid samples in a microbiology lab, Here Project Search’s team of job coaches because of the loss of benefits, they will
highly critical work, at a level of come in, liaising with employee, find open work environments too
accuracy and productivity that employer and co-workers to ensure stressful, they will be bullied,
has astonished co-workers. that a person has the skills and their behaviours will annoy and alarm
Another was put forward to self-confidence to benefit from the their coworkers. Project SEARCH have
apply for a position as a ward understanding of those around them. politely consigned all of these
host, only for the ward sister This ensures they can fit successfully into assumptions to the rubbish bin, looked at
to intervene and appoint them their team and do their job well. the people with learning disabilities they
to the higher position of health The approach is an unusual mix of support, and seen them as people who
care support worker. high idealism and deep can work. So have the employers who
People are working as pragmatism. The idealism is have taken them on, much to the
receptionists in that there is no compromise astonishment of some learning
busy outpatient departments, or carrying on the central premise – people must go disability professionals.
out complex sterilization and maintenance into real jobs, with proper pay, on the
work on high-level equipment. They are open labour market. The pragmatism is in On the day that I visited the Royal London
working in areas as diverse as oral surgery, building a coalition of interests around the Hospital, the lead BBC news story was
endoscopy, catering, restaurants, person to make this happen. that the NHS had over 30,000 full time
maternity, estates, medical records, job vacancies, and had advertised more
portering and medical engineering. FRANCHISE BASIS than 86,000 vacancies in the first three
Each of them has gained their job on It is not of course just about working in months of 2017. This was described as
merit, because they have the skills, ability the NHS. Project SEARCH operates on a an ‘unprecedented workforce crisis in the
and personality to do it. franchise basis, overseen in the UK and NHS’. In circumstances like this, it is an act
Europe by employment specialists of almost criminal negligence to consign a
What are the secrets of this success? Anne O’Bryan and Carmel McKeogh. significant segment of the population
There seem to be a number of factors. There are partnerships with hotel to a lifetime on benefits because they
Underpinning it all appear to be the high groups, universities, retail distribution, are considered incapable of working.
expectations that Project SEARCH holds drug companies, local authorities and, in Project SEARCH are showing,
of its participants. They go through a America, even a casino. It is not so much very elegantly, one way out of
process of total immersion in the work what employers do that matters, as their this morass.
they do, and interact with the workforce willingness to integrate people with
and its management as employees, not learning disabilities into their workforce Website:
as ‘special’ people. This can be tough, but and build their skills and experience. http://projectsearch.us/Home.aspx
Debbie Robinson and colleague Steve Parr
describe the transformations which Project SEARCH overturns many of the For queries about Project SEARCH in the
people undergo when they are placed in assumptions that bedevil people with UK: anne.o’bryan@projectsearchuk.com
this sort of environment. Project SEARCH learning disabilities who wish to enter Thanks to Project SEARCH job coaches
also works with the families of the labour market. For many years we Lee Bones and Lorraine Hall for their help
participants, to ensure that they have been told that people need endless with this article.

www.cl-initiatives.co.uk Community Living Vol 31 No 1 | Autumn 2017 15