EPSR good practices of implementation: Principle 4. Active Support to Employment
Principle 4. Active support to employment
a. Everyone has the right to timely and tailor-made assistance to improve employment or self-employment prospects. This includes the right to receive support for job search, training and re-qualification. Everyone has the right to transfer social protection and training entitlements during professional transitions.
b. Young people have the right to continued education, apprenticeship, traineeship or a job offer of good standing within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving education.
c. People unemployed have the right to personalised, continuous and consistent support. The long-term unemployed have the right to an in-depth individual assessment at the latest at 18 months of unemployment. EPR believes that recognising that employment is an important factor to achieve social inclusion should not divert from the fact that there are people who cannot work during all of their working years or part of them, and who are more at risk of poverty and social exclusion.
To implement this principle EPR recommends the following issues are prioritised:
-Creating inclusive labour markets through effective employment programmes in partnership with employers.
-Ensuring that individualised and specialised support services are available not only in the early stage of unemployment when actively seeking a job but also during employment, supporting the employee & employers, to increase the number of People With Disabilities employed, and improve job retention.
-Ensuring people with disabilities can access labour guidance from persons that understand disability and the importance of tackling environmental and social barriers that people with disability face (e.g. social model of disability).
-Ensuring adequate benefits can compensate for people with disabilities who cannot work full time
-Supported employment as a model should be promoted.
-Ensure programmes that support mental health and well-being for healthy working environments are in place. Stress levels in working environments have increased yet there is often insufficient support or understanding of psychosocial health risks.
-Continuing to promote the Active Inclusion concept which clearly outlines the importance of the three dimensions or "threefold alignment" of access to services, inclusive labour markets and adequate income support for accessing social rights.
-Reasonable accommodation as a concept must be promoted. In the planned work on employment and reasonable accommodation in the European Disability strategy it is important to engage service providers who have experience of partnerships with employers for integrating PWD in the workplace, to share good practice and dispel stigma.
-Complement the Europe 2020 headline targets on employment and poverty with specific “sub-targets” including targets on employment and poverty of persons with disabilities, developing indicators and statistics on persons with disabilities in line with the UNCRPD Country Concluding Observations, and refer to the Concluding Observations in the Country Specific Recommendations.
-Social enterprise, particularly work integrating social enterprises, should be supported and good practices shared
-It is essential to ensure quality employment in the social and health sectors, thus promoting recruitment and retention.
Examples of good practices that demonstrate principle 4 of the EPSR's include:
1. Institu national d'assurance maladie-invalidite (INAMI)
2. Heliomare "Early Intervention in vocational rehabiliation" (add link)