Originally published here.

This article offers a critical reflection on the function of Education, Healthand Care Plans (EHCPs) in pathways to employment for disabled young peo-ple. We begin by orienting the analysis to our disciplinary locations, beforeexamining ‘the education plan’ as an artefact of special educational needssystems across the global North. We problematise the often taken-for-grantedassumption that such plans are a ‘good’ thing in the lives of disabled youngpeople; at the same time, we consider the rise in demand for plans which are understood by many as a crucial mechanism for achieving support.

We then turn to our particular geopolitical location and the current system for specialeducational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) in England, following the re-cent policy reforms (DfE & DoH, 2015). We describe a context in which thefunding of education in general, and for children ‘with SEND’ in particular,is shrinking, and in which the promise of employment for disabled youngpeople has yet to be delivered. We conclude by proposing some changes topolicy and practice to enhance employment opportunities for disabled youngpeople, and call for a socially just system in which no child is reduced to thecategory of ‘special need’.

We conclude this article by seeking to make a useful contribution to thepolicy discussions about the employment of young people with learning dis-abilities. Before we do so, we want to reiterate two key points. The first isthat engagement in employment should not be seen as a marker of a person’svalue, and that people make positive contributions to their communities inways that cannot be monetised. The second is that an education plan is nevervalue-free; it can never be a neutral description but has power to construct achild’s identity,

 for good and for ill

.However, we have to acknowledge that for many people work is a key pathwayto financial security, health and well-being. Furthermore, for many disabledchildren and young people, a plan is still the mechanism through which em-ployment pathways are offered. The fact that only 6% of people with learningdisabilities are in paid employment (NHS Digital, 2018) reveals the exclusionthat many people with learning disabilities have experienced from paid workas a pathway to financial security and well-being. People with learning dis-abilities have been promised the opportunity to work over the last 20 years(Bates et al., 2017), and while that promise remains unfulfilled, the health inequalities experienced by people with learning disabilities have grown, sothat adults with learning disabilities now die, on average, 13 to 20 years beforetheir peers (NHS England, 2017). Any small steps towards moving disabledpeople, who want to work, into employment must be prioritised.In our analysis, we have referred repeatedly to the pervasive impact of neo-liberal-ableist logic which privileges ‘ability’. We believe that it is importantto expose this logic and the role that it plays in producing people with learn-ing disabilities as liminal subjects, neither fully excluded from the neoliberaldemand to work, nor fully supported to do so. Yet, post-Brexit and with noend to austerity in sight, we want to set aside these critiques for a moment,in order to see if it might be possible to re-appropriate neoliberal thinkingin order to improve outcomes for people with learning disabilities. Recentpolicy shifts have been driven by an implicit belief that support for childrenand young people is a cost to the taxpayer, and that it represents a burdento the state (Hunter et al., 2019). In order to challenge this view, we needto demonstrate that support for disabled young people should be seen as asound economic investment.

The National Audit Office report Oversight of Special Education for YoungPeople Aged 16–25

 (NAS, 2011) estimates that:

• the cost to the public purse of supporting a person with a moderate learn-ing disability through adult life (16–64) is £2–3 million;

• supporting one person with a learning disability into employment could,in addition to improving their independence and self-esteem, reduce life-time costs to the public purse by around £170,000 and increase the person'sincome by between 55 and 95%;

• providing a young person with the relevant life and employability skills sothat they can live in their community could reduce lifetime support costs tothe public by approximately £1 million. (Hunter et al., 2019).

Therefore it makes sense to invest in employment for young disabled peopleto reduce costs. Removing the systemic barriers that act as disincentives fordisabled people to work remains key. To that end, we propose a number ofpolicy interventions (Hunter et al., 2019), echoing the neoliberal demand forpace and progress.The first is to ensure that transition reviews for young people with EHCPsdo focus on employment. As far as we are aware, there has been no in-depth empirical research into the extent to which employment is embedded withinthe transition review process.

Transition guidance – both NDTI (2018) andPreparing for Adulthood (no date) – continues to stress the importance offocusing on employment, but the persistently low rates of employment foradults with learning disabilities suggest that the current system is not work-ing. We do not know exactly what happens in transition reviews. However, itis possible to speculate that reviews are often, and understandably, taken upwith more immediate concerns such as ensuring the plan is not brought toan end; finding post-16 placements; school transport issues; and transition arrangements towards adult health and social care services – with the unintended consequence that employment is pushed out of the discussion.

Our second recommendation is that every local authority should have a supported internship programme in place. We noted the success of the programmein moving young people from education to employment and yet, despite thepublication of guidance by the Department for Education in 2014 (revisedin 2017) (DfE, 2017), the number of young people accessing the programmevaries considerably between local authorities. This seems to be a missedopportunity. In 2017, the Government set up a £9.7 million fund for localareas to create new supported internships.

If they are serious about boost-ing employment among people with learning disabilities, then they shouldsubstantially increase the size of this fund. Local authorities should developmeasures to encourage employers to offer supported internships and otherappropriate opportunities, including through employer charters.Third, we suggest that the Government should allow young people withlearning disabilities to retain the support provided through EHCPs for thefirst year of employment.

This recommendation reflects the concerns ofyoung people and families that moving into employment presents a risk tothem losing the support, which is often hard-won, provided in the EHCP.Given the status of the plan as a ‘golden ticket’, it is not surprising that fami-lies fear that if employment breaks down the young person will not be able tosecure another plan and will, therefore, lose the provision set out in the plan.A continuation of the plan into the first year of employment minimises thisrisk for young people and families.Fourth, there needs to be an investment in job coaching across the countryso that young people are able to access this form of support in each local authority.

Again this provision is patchy. In addition, we also suggest thateach local authority commit to developing the role of job coaches in line with the British Association of Supported Employment’s National OccupationalStandards for Supported Employment, which set out the skills and knowl-edge needed by the supported employment workforce (BASE, 2017).

Fifth, although one in ten people in the working population are self-employed,there are very few people with learning disabilities who are self-employed (Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities, 2012). Self-employmentand small and medium-sized enterprise options for young disabled peopleoffer a potential pathway to employment for young disabled people that iscurrently underdeveloped (Bates et al., 2017).

Finally, while these policy changes might deliver cost savings for the neolib-eral state, they might also improve the life chances of people with learningdisabilities. However, if we are also to invest in achieving a socially just so-ciety, then it is time to consider how we can move away from a system un-derpinned by a deficit model of difference and disability so that no child isexcluded from the category of ‘pupil’ and reduced to the category of ‘special need’ in education.

You can read the complete report here.