WorkABILITY

WorkABILITY is a user-driven project funded by The Big Lottery Fund with a purpose to ‘overcome barriers to work with students with a physical or learning challenge’. It involves a partnership with Oaklands College ( - with plans to work with other colleges in Hertfordshire) and its targets include

• 20 students per year to benefit from work experience placements (2 each) with a wide choice of employers
• 10 students per year to obtain paid or voluntary employment
• meet all students’ needs for special equipment for use in the workplace
• recruit 40 employers in year 1, 20 employers in year 2, and 10 in year 3
• run an effective, targeted publicity / promotion campaign, and
• 75% of participants to report greater self-confidence, and 75% to report expectation of leading a more fulfilling life.

These targets cover the 3 years of lottery funding from 1st January 2007 to 31st December 2009.

Progress since 1st January 2007

• A group of 5 students taking a lead role in the selection of the full time Employment Facilitator – Murray Bradburn.
• The 4 students on the Operations Group taking responsibility for the operational management of WorkABILITY – by meeting every fortnight, being involved in working groups (focussing on publicity, placements, and equipment), and meeting the Big Lottery targets.
• 4 students acting in a peer-mentoring role with a Ready for Work group on 4 occasions, and
• A student redesigning Hertfordshire PASS’s website, and the Publicity working group starting to design etc WorkABILITY literature.

Below are some young peoples' experiences who have been involved in WorkABILITY.

Katie Fraser’s role in the project

My role in the project has been to be a secretary at the Operations Group and to write down the minutes of the meetings and type them out afterwards to distribute them to all members by email. I find this a great task and it helps me to learn more about organisational skills in meetings and it also makes me feel that I am making a valuable contribution and that others feel I am valued as a team member as well.

I have also been working on a lot of research for our publicity meetings and operations group such as finding ways of contacting different companies, contacting The Cat Survival Trust in Welwyn, to ask about a work experience placement for one of our students.

I have also helped to become a buddy for the Ready To Work students who attended Oaklands College and I was part of assisting them in telephone skills, interview skills, and visits to companies within the Weltech Centre and from what I could tell, the encouragement I gave them, and others who assisted as well being “buddies”, the feedback from the tutor Sally Ann Williams was excellent.  

Also I currently work in the Herts Pass office as well doing a volunteer job where I am an employment assistant. I find this work very good as I am learning a lot more about working in an office and I have learnt that mundane jobs can be very vital as it helps to run the office more effectively!

26th July 07

Jonathan Lennon's experience with WorkABILITY

This is me helping Murray & Nigel on their IT stuff e.g. helping Murray do a flipped image by using my ICT Graphics Skills.

Original version of image

Flipped version of image

• The other one is doing some Internet guidelines for the Ready for Work group (this was very useful for the ready for work group to know how to find a job on the internet).

Positive experiences at Herts Pass on 18/07/07

First thing that I have done today is continuing inputting data about different companies like Lemon ltd, Buckhall Austin’s, and Adapt-IT that seemed very useful for Herts Pass.

Logo for Lemon ltd:
 

Logo for Adapt-IT:

Logo for Buckhall Austin’s:

Second thing that I have done today is shredding documents that were private to Herts Pass.
I have enjoyed the shredding a little bit.

Then the next thing that I have done is typing up about what I have done at Herts Pass today as shown above.

Examples of what I enjoyed & learnt at HertsPass (All time)

What I have enjoyed about Herts Pass is helping Nigel Fenner load up my typed information onto the Herts Pass office.

One thing that learnt at Herts Pass is doing mail merge labels and I have really enjoyed this.

I have learnt that when I am the last person to leave an office I must ask for someone who has the keys to lock the office.

My Parents have designed a better Student hour’s spreadsheet for Murray Bradburn to use, which was very useful for Herts Pass.

How my task log form is used

How useful is the Task log form

I use this every week that I go to Herts Pass by listing when I have done each task, describing each task, what sort of skills that I have used, and rating how useful & enjoyable each task was.

I really think this should be used for all students who experience work at Herts Pass.

27th July 2007

Pictures of students involved with WorkABILITY