Supporting the Transition into Employment: A support Service for Students with Disabilities- Career Pathways

Background: The European Union has been supporting students with disabilities for over ten years through the European Social fund. As a result more students than ever with disabilities are accessing and succeeding in higher... [ view full abstract ]

Background:
The European Union has been supporting students with disabilities for over ten years through the European Social fund. As a result more students than ever with disabilities are accessing and succeeding in higher education (AHEAD, 2015), however they are still experiencing difficulties entering the world of work as identified by Nolan and Gleeson (2015). Students/Graduates were experiencing difficulties such as challenges with negotiating disclosure and reasonable accommodations, concerns building work experiences, and fitting into the workplace.

The aim of this paper is to present the Career Pathways Service established in response to this research, and to share the innovative occupation-focused approaches developed to complement and enhance the career-focused services offered by Careers Advisers within higher education institutes.

Theoretical underpinning:
The approaches developed were guided by the Person-Environment-Occupation Model with Occupational Therapists utilising their expertise in occupation and occupational engagement to enable students to develop work-related skills, through their experiences with the student role.

Techniques:
Career Pathways utilised different approaches to supporting students, including one-to-one occupational therapy and careers advisory sessions, group based workshops, a peer support model, a three day Boot Camp and an online e-portfolio system.

Evaluation of outcome:
126 students have utilised Career Pathways over the past year and a half, with over 400 individual meetings, a three day boot-camp and 61 students registering on the ePortfolio.

Application to practice:
This presentation will share some lessons learnt and will provide information in how OTs can support this educated group of students to manage the transition into employment.