How can the participation of people with disabilities in working life be improved? A central key to this is that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are willing and able to employ people with disabilities. SMEs often communicate that there is a lack of competence and capacity to engage with people who may not integrate completely smoothly into one’s own business. Often, attempts at placement fail because of prejudices and stereotypes already during the application process. Moreover, bias and prejudices appears in the areas of accessibility, collegiality, work organization as well as in the sector of labor law, in the design of tasks and in skills development, which make it difficult to retain people with their diverse special needs in the medium and long term. In order to bridge these multiple gaps, the Be inclusive! project aim to develop educational videos in the form of microlearning that demonstrate various aspects of the inclusion of people with disabilities in a SMEs. Moreover, it provides in-depth learning possibilities for job placement trainers that can be used or implemented to motivate potential SME-employers to employ disabled people. The project’s main objective is to develop and support approaches on how to improve the participation of people with disabilities in working life. During its 24 months implementation, the project will work to:
- create motivation and awareness raising to employ and train people with disabilities;
- provide basic information on the topic;
- integrate people with disabilities better and more sustainably into work processes;
- improve the placement success of people with disabilities;
- develop and use digital, innovative learning material / exchange of experiences and examples of practice from different areas and countries.
Activities
- Research on national level which will include own experiences of the partner as well as national framework conditions and best practices on inclusion of people with disabilities in the workplace.
- Creation of Guideline and development of didactic principles addressed to an educational proposal based on microlearning.
- Video production on topics of workplace and disabilities, taking into consideration EDI criteria.
- Development of factsheets to deepen specific topic – from the recruitment to the effective working activity – to be shared both with employers and SMEs staff.
Results
- Brochure “People with disabilities in the labour market: placement, inclusion and sustainable employment in SMEs” with the goal to foster SMEs’ motivation to employ people with disabilities, to deliver essential information, to support sustainable integration into the labor market.
- Modular-designed learning Videos (Microlearning) for SMEs to support the integration process of people with disabilities. They deliver concrete suggestions and practical tips.
- Complementary Material to the Learning Videos offering further learning possibilities for in-depth self-study and for use in practice. They are designed also for implementation in trainings in the field of Inclusion and labor market.
Partners
- Coordinator: Akademie Klausenhof, Germany
- DIE BERATER, Austria
- Izobrazevalni center Geoss, Slovenia
- Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci, Italy
- Research Innovation and Development Lab, Greece
- European Association of Service providers for Persons with Disabilities, Belgium
- SUSTENTO, Latvia
- Travail.Suisse Formation, Switzerland
