The Transition of Youth with Disabilities from Education to the Labour Market - URI Soča

In Slovenia, as in other EU countries and worldwide, the transition of young people with disabilities from school to the labour market presents a challenge compared to their non-disabled peers. They are at high risk of suffering long-term unemployment, which can result in a decline in their basic skills, professional knowledge or working habits and negatively impact their Quality of Life. For this reason, the Ministry of Labour, Family , Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities developed a national project to facilitate and increase the social inclusion of young people with disabilities and to create a unified supportive environment as an interface between school and the labour market for the empowered entry of young people with disabilities into the labour market. The project started in January 2018 and lasted until August 2022. 2077 participated in the project. The project consortium consisted of all 13 national vocational rehabilitation providers implementing project activities across all Slovenian regions. The European Social Fund (ESF) and the Slovenian Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities supported the project financially.


Guiding principles

The project partners agreed on guiding principles for the participation of the young people in the project: (1) Participation in the project is voluntary (2) Young people actively participate in the project activities including the preparing of an individual transition plan (3) The project activities involve parents and caregivers (4) The project promotes the cooperation between different institutions incl. schools, social services, health services, employers, and youth organisations.


Education backgrounds

Almost half of the participants were enrolled in primary school and one fifth in specialised primary school. 13% were in vocational, vocational/technical education and grammar school, 10 % in secondary vocational education, 7% in lower vocational education and universities. A few of the participants were not involved in formal education or were at first but left at later stage.


Disabilities

26 % of the participants were young people with a combination of two or more disabilities, among them the most common were mild intellectual disabilities, long-term illness, autistic disabilities and physical disabilities, and young people with intellectual disabilities. Significantly fewer young persons had emotional and behavioural disorders (7%), autistic spectrum disorders (6%), physical disabilities (6%), deafness or hard of hearing (6 %), speech and language disorders (6 %) or visual impairment (2 %).


Professional support

During the project implementation, the consortium kept track of support worker time spend for different types of activities with the participants. Participants stayed for an average of 15 months in the project, and each participant received an average of 70 hours of professional support during the project. More than a third of the total work time was spent on motivation and empowerment, followed by developing individual support plans, cooperation with parents or caregivers. Other areas included cooperation with schools, cooperation with vocational rehabilitation providers, cooperation with employers, recruitment of participants and administrative work.


Project results

In view of the main objective of activating young people through the support of a unified support system, the project was very successful. 75% of the participants decided to continue education (64%), register with the employment services  (10%) or take up employment (1%). It should be noted that most of the young people who continued education attended primary school or a specialised school with a special school curriculum for young people with special needs. Most of the young people registered with the Employment Service of Slovenia were previously enrolled in a vocational or secondary education programme.


Project benefits

  1. Young people with disabilities benefited from the project by receiving psychosocial support, guidance and information; and through the process gained improved motivation, self-confidence and empowerment.
  2. Parents benefited from the project by receiving additional support and help as well as information about educational programmes, vocational rehabilitation and the labour market.
  3. Educational institutions received information about the future possibilities for young people with disabilities, which had good and many times positive effect on the young people.

Project Youth Transition+

The project consortium got approval for a second project named “Youth Transition+” which will be implemented between August 2025 and September 2029, led by the Association of Vocational Rehabilitation Providers and cofinanced by the Ministry of Labor, Family, Social Affairs, and Equal Opportunities and the EU (ESF+). The target group includes young people aged up to 26 years with intellectual disabilities, blindness and visual impairment, deafness and hard of hearing, speech and language disorders, physical disabilities, long-term illness, autism, emotional and behavioural disorders. They are enrolled in the final grades of elementary school, elementary schools for children with special needs, high school or university. The main objective is addressing high rates of inactivity among young people with disabilities, by systematic and professional support work, training and education through practical work with employers, and awareness raising among employers about the usefulness of employing young people with disabilities. The overall ambitions are to prevent unemployment of young people with disabilities, transition young people with disabilities as quickly as possible from formal education into the labour market, establish the project as a regular national programme.