Two self-advocates in Wales got fed up of being excluded from the world of work. They decided self-employment was the way forward and set up Barod, which means ‘ready’ in Welsh. Bryan Collis reports
Imagine saying to 100 pupils: “When you leave school, only five or six of you will have a job in any given year until you are 65.” Well, we doubt you can. This is the case in special schools in England. In 2018-19, just under 8,000 adults with learning disabilities who receive long-term support from social services were in paid employment (NHS Digital, 2019). This includes any paid work or self-employment of one hour per week or more. There are no numbers for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. In the absence of real work, many people instead start to call day services and day opportunities “work”. Family carers may just want or need the support that school previously provided (unpaid care for five days a week during term time) to continue. People with learning disabilities who try to work are often put off by other people. Other people say, “You will lose your benefits”, “You won’t manage a full-time job” or just “It’s not for you”. And, if you try to access mainstream business support, you can be put off by your disability adviser at the job centre. That happened to one of the people who was planning to co-found our organisation, Barod. People tasked with supporting new businesses often do not know how to provide support that is accessible to people with different learning needs.
Ready to run a business
Seven years ago, Barod was set up by two self-advocates and two allies to make money and create inclusive employment. The self-advocates were fed up of being told they were not ready and needed to go on yet another course or work placement.
“There is a history of schemes that say they are about work but do not provide or lead to real work for real money”
We chose the name Barod, the Welsh word for “ready” as a way of saying we were ready to work and ready to run a business. Today, we have 12 employees, of whom eight have a learning disability. No one works full time and we are all paid the same hourly wage. We rely on doing business successfully, not on grants. We make information accessible, train people and do social research and evaluation. Sometimes, we feel we belong in the business world; sometimes, people make us feel that we do not belong. We started a two-year research project called The Bridge to see if other selfadvocates could become self-employed or start their own businesses and social enterprises from within self-advocacy organisations. It was funded by Drill (Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning), through the National Lottery Community Fund. We wanted to see if our story would be true of others, whether they were starting their own businesses or trying to make money for their organisation. We worked with Social Firms Wales, My Life My Choice, People First Dorset and Carmarthenshire People First to do the research. We worked co-productively with mixed teams of people with and without learning disabilities all the time.
Research themes
We found five main themes.
The leap of faith
You can do all the preparation and research you like, but there comes a time when you have to jump.
●●If you are not used to taking risks, you probably will not jump.
●●If you are told you are no good, you probably will not jump.
●●If you think you will lose your benefits and will not be able to get them back if it goes wrong, you probably will not jump.
●●Some people did jump.
Invisible support
Where people thrived, learned lots and became more confident, they had invisible support.
●●This is the encouragement a friend gives.
●●It is a colleague who checks an email without making a fuss.
●●It is a buddy who has your back so you can concentrate on the hard bit of the job you are doing right now.
●●It is the place you can drop in when you are passing to check if you have got your business cards right.Some organisations have a culture that gives invisible support. Most business support is visible, has to be booked in advance, is time limited and not flexible.
Personal journey
People all have different journeys into business. The road can be very winding and have some crossroads where you have difficult decisions to make. Sometimes, you have to make a U-turn. You might start working a few hours a week to test the water, see if you can cope, see if you like it, see if others like you. Sometimes, you have to take a rest for a year or more. As you travel, the way you see yourself will change. You might start calling yourself staff or a worker or businessman or businesswoman. People with learning disabilities have complex lives, with carers, social workers, support workers, job coaches, advocates, friends and families. Not everyone will agree about what you should do next, but it is your life.
Organisational journey
When organisations try to make money, it can be a big change. Some people think you should still do things for free. Others will start to look at you with new eyes. They will want you to be professional, have high standards and respond to their wishes. Grant funding means getting money then deciding how to spend it and it feels safe for a year or two. Being in business means you have to get the money every month. If you do not get the money, then your job ends very quickly. Businesses have to make quick decisions. Charity trustees can take a long time to make decisions. Learning together as mixed teams of people with and without learning disabilities gives your organisation a good chance to be a success.
Belonging in the business world
When you start doing something new, you can feel like an outsider. This happens to everyone starting a business. To belong, you need to feel accepted and understand the rules that no one talks about. Most people get a friend who can help them learn about belonging in the business world. If you have a learning disability, this can be harder. People may dismiss you or pretend you aren’t there. People often make judgments quickly, based on what you look like or how you talk.
“Ten years in work placements and still not getting the national living wage is exploitation”
One way of helping yourself to belong is to “wear the right shoes”. People have work clothes and work behaviour. If you put on work clothes and behave like you are at work, people are more likely to treat you as if you belong. We have made a video and fact sheets for each of these themes, which will be made available at our website at www.businessforall.info.
Help for others
Our project developed an online glossary – a list of hard words and what they mean – for anyone who wants to understand what business advisers are talking about when they use words like “cashflow forecast”. We also developed “business blocks” – worksheets you can do before you start up in your own time and in any order. Once you have done them, you will have something to take to a business start-up adviser. These will be available online at www.businessforall.info.
Action research
We also found out about doing action research with mixed teams. Our teams worked together all the time, so did not have lots of review or planning meetings. We replaced these meetings with a catch-up phone call from the central team. Some actions took a long time, so we did not see as much progress as we had hoped in the 18 months of research. We made a video and fact sheet about this too. It is called Behind the Scenes and will be on the www.businessforall.info website. The self-advocates began to see themselves as business people or workers. Two have sold handmade cards online and at craft fairs. Two have developed their photography hobbies towards businesses. The self-advocacy bodies turned successful projects into business-like services and know how much they need to earn to cover costs, employ people and have a surplus. They have marketed services and seen new customers beyond the usual suspects a funded service would work with.
Barod: http://barod.org
Alan Armstrong, Mal Cansdale, Anne Collis and Lucy Hinksman contributed to this article
