Media and resources on employment matters

New Disability Employment Model Needed

Senator Mitch Fifield, ProBono News Australia, 2nd June 2015... We spend around $1 billion each year on disability employment services, but still only a third of those supported by these services will find a job. We need a new system that better works with employers and people with disability to overcome the barriers to employment ...

Senator Mitch Fifield is the Assistant Minister for Social Services with responsibility for disability and ageing. He is also Manager of Government Business in the Senate.


The value that employees with Down Syndrome can add to organizations
Vicente Assis, Marcus Frank, Guilherme Bcheche and Bruno Kuboiama, McKinsey and Company (Brazil), March 2014. Available to download in English, Portugese and Spanish.

... There are mutual gains when people with Down Syndrome are included in the workplace. People with Down Syndrome involved in such initiatives have a better quality of life and opportunities for development, while the companies that employ them often report significant improvements in their “organizational health”.  

People with Down Syndrome generally have a positive impact on a number of “organizational health: dimensions such as leadership, external orientation (a positive impact on client satisfaction), culture and climate, motivation and coordination and control. This impact has been measured in qualitative and quantitative surveys of leading organizations that have chosen to hire people with Down Syndrome. The positive impact people with Down Syndrome can have on “organizational health” also reflects on business performance, as it is known that there is a direct, mapped relationship between increased “organizational health” and business performance. As people with Down Syndrome can affect more than one of the dimensions that make up “organizational health”, they are one of the numerous factors that can influence business performance ... Executive Summary

Note that Australia is not mentioned in this table from the report (p 9).

Finding employment opportunities for people with disabilities
Scherry Bloul, Sydney Morning Herald, 5th June 2015
About two years ago the Food Co-Op at the ANU was approached with a proposal they could not refuse – empower and train people with disabilities as volunteers.

LEAD Contracting is a Canberra based not-for-profit organisation offering meaningful employment opportunities and programs to people with disabilities.

LEAD Community development manager Jeff Thompson approached the co-op shortly after they launched their regular healthy and cheap lunches.

"When the affordable healthy lunches started out it was a great opportunity because it ticks off a whole bunch of things, not only the kind of washing and tidying up, but there is also all the team work, meeting other people and learning about work," Mr Thompson said ...

Also posted in a compilation of News and Commentary on the NDIS on Tuesday:

NDIS helps Briahna Grant-Griffin set up rag doll business with push-button sewing machine

Claire Colley, Canberra Times, 8th June, 2015

... Like most 20-year-olds, Ms Grant-Griffin needs to earn money to make the dream a reality, but living with cerebral palsy makes working a full time job a challenge. Thanks to a push-button sewing machine paid for through the National Disability Insurance Scheme, Ms Grant-Griffin is setting up her own business Lis and Bri Upcycling with help from her mum Alisa Griffin ...