Supporting Employment for People with Disabilities in Extremadura
Collective Needs of the Workplace
Need for Guidance
Applicants need to share their self-knowledge and personal itinerary so we can understand their occupational interests. They need to be informed about potential career paths, training levels, job market offerings, schools, support services, grants, and benefits. There is also a lack of specific public services that help disabled people find jobs and a lack of protected support.
Need for Training
Basic F. Mandatory (adult schools), F. Postobligatoria (vocational training, high school, and college), F. Ocupacional with a more practical approach, F. Non-formal courses or workshops academies, F. Continuous (computer languages, etc.).
The Need for Job Placement
Individuals need to know and use job search techniques. It is important to try to access jobs through short periods of practice or learning, which often allow the employer to offer a contract based on better performance and avoid problems in the selection process.
Specific Needs Arising from Their Disability
These needs relate to the circumstances of each person and can be separated into generic or related to:
- Physical or Sensory Disability: Architectural barriers, adaptation to the job, or mobility support.
- Psychic Disability: A professional who facilitates the process of transition and adaptation to a new working environment or a transition plan that governs the insertion process. In addition to raising awareness among families that do not need a paternalistic attitude.
Need to Educate the Business World
There is a need to educate the business world, especially to inform them about the bonuses they can receive and labor regulations in this regard. We must also add the need to create work designed to undo the stereotypes and prejudices about this group.
EXTREMADURA
Measure 4.3.1: Support for the Recruitment of People Experiencing Disability
The architectural and social barriers that hinder the employability of people with disabilities are often overcome by economic incentives for businesses. Therefore, the employment of people with disabilities should have a higher level of support than other population groups. For this reason, subsidies will be established for ordinary companies hiring people with disabilities in a percentage equal to or greater than 33%. In addition to financial support for recruitment, job adaptation, and the provision of means of protection or removal of architectural and/or communication barriers will be subsidized. As for training, promote its adaptation in all areas, materials, access, support staff, sign language interpreters, etc.
Measure 4.3.2: Special Employment Centres
Special Employment Centres perform invaluable work for the society of Extremadura. The reforms introduced by the Employment Plan have greatly contributed to improving this system integration. It is necessary to establish and strengthen control mechanisms for the proper functioning of the Centres, while continuing to encourage the transition to the regular labor market and increasing support for the jobs generated, because without their concurrence, we would have a less supportive society.
Among the measures to be carried out in this respect are to promote public ownership or, failing that, of non-profit institutions of the EEC that operate in the territory of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura. A special program will also be launched to enforce the labor rights of workers from the Centers by the labor authorities. This program will be agreed upon with the signatories of the Plan. Besides the above, centers will be encouraged and monitored by the occupational centers and business enclaves.
Measure 4.3.3: Supported Employment Programs and Personal Adjustment
Sheltered employment should increase its instruments so that we can speak more about equality in all its meaning, also with regard to people with difficulties due to their physical, mental, or sensory limitations. The promotion and expansion of supported employment programs and support for units of personal and social adjustment should exceed the level of processing to get closer to full use by businesses and sheltered employment centers. Thus, supported employment will be funded and supported for the development of skills of people with mental disabilities and people with physical or sensory disabilities. In doing so, enhancing the concept of “job coach” in the Special Employment Centres, as a lever for the transit of persons with disabilities in the regular market, is one of the objectives of this measure. This will involve the necessary regulation to be effective in our community of those grants for supported employment.
Measure 4.3.4: Awareness-Raising for the Integration of People with Disabilities
The most important moment for the labor market will be when positive action measures for the employability of people with disabilities have disappeared as a result of the normalization of their participation in the labor market. For the moment, these people need additional support to be inserted, so it is necessary to multiply the number of awareness campaigns to normalize their access to the world of work.