At Little Gate Farm, Beckley, they believe everyone has the right to train for, find and thrive in paid employment and they work with families and businesses across East Sussex and Kent to make this vision a reality.
Giselle O’Carroll, digital communications officer explains the work done at the farm and its successes: “Since 2014, Little Gate supported employment has secured 118 paid roles for people with learning disabilities and autism, and that number is only growing.
“We believe that people with these disabilities deserve to live purposeful and fulfilling lives and should have the opportunity to realise their dreams and aspirations. It’s all about finding the right employment for the right person, matching each individual’s skills, ambitions, and interests with employers’ needs.
“We work with employers across East Sussex and Kent to discuss in detail their business needs and the skills required for each role in order to successfully fulfill their hiring requirements by matching trainees to paid employment, which in turn can lead to life-changing outcomes.”
“To match job roles effectively, we carry out vocational profiles in which trainees’ skills, experience, interests, and aspirations are assessed. Trainees are actively involved in this process and are encouraged to make informed decisions about their future careers, along with parents, carers and support staff.
“Throughout the job-matching process, each trainee receives ongoing personalised support from a job coach. Once employment has been matched, job coaches support trainees to get to know their new role, working directly within the workplace. This includes travel training, benefits advice, getting to know their new work environment and its specific requirements to a high standard, as well as supporting trainees to build relationships with colleagues and any other social aspects. Each trainee’s support is tailored to their needs, and job coaches will offer as little or as much support as necessary. Support is delivered for up to six months, or until the individual is confident enough to work independently. Support is flexible and is always available should a trainee face any changes, or challenges, or require new training.
“For our employers, hiring a person with learning disabilities and autism is an incredibly rewarding process that comes with a multitude of benefits. Research has shown that having someone with learning disabilities in your business can enhance the empathy and well-being of the whole team. Employers’ absence costs may also reduce – a study into workforce reliability has shown that people with a learning disability have significantly less sickness absences and are less likely to be late to work than their non-disabled co-workers. Employers are supported by Little Gate throughout the matching process as well as throughout a trainee’s employment.”
Giselle added: “At Little Gate, we offer bespoke training to help organisations to meet their business needs and a range of training solutions, including disability awareness training for customer-facing roles, strategy workshops for developing inclusive practices and policies, and coaching to support managers working with diverse teams. Our training examines some of the challenges trainees may face in the workplace and allows employers to identify any reasonable adjustments that may be required.
“Since 2014, we have built up some incredible relationships with local employers who are proud to be inclusive employers. Each year we hold an employer thank you event to celebrate the wonderful connections we have made and the exceptional success stories these have enabled for both our trainees and local businesses.”
“But don’t just take our word for it,” said Giselle, “one of our employers shares his thoughts below.”
Stewart Drew, director and chief executive at the De La Warr Pavillion: “You worry that ‘this is gonna be a lot of extra work’, but the Little Gate model has been a real shining light … it’s been an incredible experience.
“It’s changed the dynamics in our teams – when you introduce the supported apprenticeship the atmosphere really changed. Not only did it give us additional capacity, but it’s been really, really empowering for the team and really good fun.
“Refreshing our diversity policy, handbook and plan as well as actively talking about diversity and inclusion helps us to protect the wellbeing of the team and welfare of the team.
“Having open and frank discussion and being able to discuss things has meant being able to retain staff and attract new ones. If it wasn’t for the Little Gate activity and the Project Artworks activity we wouldn’t have got that.”
Image Credits: Little Gate Farm archives .