Support can include helping pay for practical support and managing health while at work, reports Grace Howarth, Local Democracy Reporter

Enfield has the highest proportion of employed people receiving learning disability support in the country, figures show.

Data collected in 2021/22 shows Enfield had 16.8% of people in jobs on learning disability support – a figure three times higher than the national average of 5.1%. The average in London is also much lower, at 6.1%.

As of March 2023, there were 131 adults in Enfield in paid employment receiving support for their learning disability from adult social care services.

Support can include helping pay for practical support with work and support with managing mental and/or physical health while at work.

Shirely-Anne Wheeler, learning disabilities employment service manager at Enfield Council, led a discussion on employment opportunities for disabled people at an equalities board meeting yesterday (Wednesday 17th).

She discussed the Equals Employment Service, an integrated service with both health and local authority staff that supports adults with learning disabilities gain and sustain paid employment.

In the past two years, 80 referrals for disability employment support were made with 44 requesting to work with Equals to find valued worker roles.

She said 25 had a learning disability and 19 pan-disabilities and, out of those, 16 have been placed in paid employment, either in the general workforce or in sheltered placements.

She said: “We are expecting employers to be able to ‘job carve’, to recognise young people with disabilities, who are coming through, can have valued working roles and be able to give back to society in those job-carved roles, and be part of our community.”

Andy Johnson, progression and pathways manager at the council, discussed supporting 16- to 24-year-olds with educational health and care plans (EHCPs) find employment, as well as inspiring children in schools with special education needs and disabilities (Send) that they “can work” and “can be paid”.

He explained how the team’s approach to finding employers to work with had progressed over the years. Several years ago they had a “scattered approach” while now they had a “supported internship” model.

Andy said several years ago the “vast majority” of young people would have gone to organisations like “B&Q, Homebase, and the hospitals”.

“Unfortunately that model is slightly frowned upon now, the start of the ‘supported internship’ was about asking the young person what is their best employment situation, what do they want to do?

“It’s working from that; how do we model a job in an area of interest, otherwise they, like any other young person, are going to get bored.”

Andy listed retail and hospitality as employer bases they’d had success with. He added the challenges faced were convincing parents to allow their children to “make the move” to employment, and trying to get employers to “take a chance on a young person”.

Shirely-Anne said: “What we’ve found is, it doesn’t matter which organisation it is, it depends on the individual manager of that organisation; whether they’re prepared to make the changes and put the effort in.

“It could be one Tesco or one Co-op or one Iceland, but the next one isn’t interested. You’ve got to have the commitment from that manager, who can identify with that person with that disability to actually give a person with Send a chance.”

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