Jobs First for people with learning disabilities? Exploring the - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Jobs First for people with learning disabilities?

Exploring the boundary between support and activation

Martin Stevens Social Care Workforce Research Unit King’s College London

Introduction

• Policy connections
• Jobs First evaluation
• Labour activation
• Forms of governance and subject

positions in Jobs First

• Jobs First in relation to labour activation

for non disabled people

• Learning Disabled Identity
• Conclusion

Policy connections

• ‘We will legislate to ensure that

everyone can take control of their care and support by giving them an entitlement to a personal budget.’ (HMG, 2012: 54)

• ‘encouraging and supporting

employment, local mentoring and volunteering activity at an individual level’. (HMG, 2010: 12 emphasis added)

Jobs First

• Refocusing social care support on employment

for people with learning disabilities

• Personal budgets to purchase supported

employment services

• Parallel with other labour activation programmes

for disabled and non disabled people

• Multiple funding streams
• Five local authority sites took part in the project

Jobs First evaluation

• Comparison group study

– Cohort of 20 people with learning disabilities per site – Matched comparison group

• Process evaluation involved 139 interviews with

– Jobs First Leads - 18 (9, 2 rounds) – Other managers and professionals - 19 (once only) – Social workers/care workers - 17 (once only) – Job coaches – 12 (once only) – People with learning disabilities - 50 (25, 2 rounds) – Carers - 23 (once only)

Labour force activation

• A long history back to 16th Century: ‘sending

vagrants to work’ (Patrick, 2012:6)

• ...the economically inactive and unemployed

[are] constructed as ‘problematic’ populations who need tough interventions if their behaviour is to be changed such that they become working and productive members of mainstream society. (Patrick, 2012: 5)

• Creates more exclusion for those unable to work

Labour activation, governance and subject position – Newman, 2007)

Forms of governance Approach to activation Subject positions

Hierarchical Coercive, using sanctions and rewards Rational citizen acting in

• wn interest

Managerial Standard settings, incentives, contracts Consumer of services Network Policy networks and partnerships between agencies and independent sector services Collaborator/partner Self Creating new norms and expectations Autonomous citizen adopting policy goal

Forms of governance – subject positions in Jobs First

• Hierarchical – Rational Citizen responding to

public spending cuts and welfare benefit changes:

– ‘so what we are doing is the bare minimum and making sure that people are safe and then moving

• nto the next person, because there is no capacity to

do it any more than that. JF6 JF Lead MS05 R2

• Managerial – Consumer of services provided by a

‘plural market’ (HMG 2010: 21), which:

– ‘can also include more mainstream and universal service providers – for instance, those offering transport or leisure options, or employment and education support – which are able to cater for people’s needs without operating exclusively in the social care sector’ (HMG 2010: 21).

More forms of governance – subject positions

• Network – Collaborator with local authorities and

employment support services

– Improving partnership working, in which closer working is to be developed by adopting a ‘joined-up approach between social care, housing, employment and other sectors’ (HMG 2010: 23).

• Self – Citizen adopting policy as personal goal

– Employment can feel like something that’s quite

• worrying. At the start people feel worried about their
• wn capability. Will I be able to do this? Will I get the

sack if I have problems in the job? JF2 Jobs First Lead MS06 R1

Jobs First Jobs First in relation to labour activation for non disabled people

• Aims match labour force activation
• Language linked to normalisation and social role

valorisation

– What we have done is given reassurances that it is not about taking something away... It’s more about creating opportunities where we can for people into paid work, JF 2 Jobs First Lead MS06R1

• However a mix of moral pressure and
• pportunity:

– ... I believe everyone should work, really. Have the

• pportunity to work at least. JF4 Adult Social Care

JH17 (Emphasis added)

No sanctions for people with learning disabilities

‘So if you’re unemployed and refuse to take either a reasonable job or to do some work in your community in return for your unemployment benefit you will lose your benefits for three months. Do it again, you’ll lose it for 6 months. Refuse a third time and you’ll lose your unemployment benefits for three years.’ Cameron 2011b

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jun/ 25/david-cameron-sweeping-welfare-reforms

Learning disability identity

• Traditionally, a biologically driven identity based on

deficits of intellectual and social functioning, often established through IQ scores and fixed by professionals

• Therefore people with learning disabilities seen as less

morally responsible for their behaviour (Finlay and Lyons, 2008)

• Jobs First promotes citizenship and a means of moving

away from the traditionally ascribed identity

• Focus on the positive elements of employments

perpetuates the fixed learning disabled identity linked.

Conclusion

• Hierarchical governance applied with less force to

people with learning disabilities, who are not therefore seen as ‘instrumental actors responding to new incentives’ (Newman, 2007: 14)

• The difference in emphasis gives out a message that

people with learning disabilities cannot be expected to take on the same responsibilities as non disabled people and are therefore never to achieve full citizenship

• Positive side effects

– Better long term employment outcomes (Eichorst and Konle-Seidl, 2008) – Fewer tensions between subject positions

• Perpetuates an excluded identity

Thank you!

Disclaimer This research draws on findings from the Jobs First Evaluation funded by the Department of Health and undertaken by the Social Care Workforce Research Unit. The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone and are not necessarily shared by the Department

• f Health.

Martin Stevens 020 7848 1860 – martin.stevens@kcl.ac.uk