Employment and getting into work
Information to help your young adults take their first steps into work, apprenticeships or supported placements.
Help with education, training or work
If your young person attends a special school, has a Statement or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) they can get information, advice and guidance on education, training and employment and other social options from the Additional Needs Pathway Advisers (ANPAs) .
They help parents and their children consider options for moving on from school or college. And should start work with young people in Year 9 at the annual educational review meeting. Support can continue through to a young person’s 25th birthday.
Your son or daughter’s school can put you in touch with the Additional Needs Team. However, you can contact the service direct and young people can also self refer.
You can find more information on support for young people with complex needs on the Local Offer page here.
View the Additional Needs Team’s’ Moving On Booklet, which provides basic information about education, training and employment choices young people will have when they leave school.
- College Courses
- Sixth Forms
- Other learning, training and volunteering opportunities
- Individual Curriculum solutions
- Specialist Residential Colleges
- Social Firms/Enterprise Organisations
- Training programmes
- Volunteering
- Employment
- Apprenticeships/Traineeships/Supported Internships/Access to Work
Going to University
Financing university life is already difficult for anyone – but it is far more complicated to navigate it with a disability. Thankfully, support is becoming more accessible, thanks to schemes such as the Disabled Students’ Allowance. To help people understand more about this financing scheme, Compare the Market created a guide that you can view here.
Written for disabled students and their guardians, this insightful, in-depth guide covers:
- An overview of what the DSA is, what it covers, and how it is different from tuition fee assistance and maintenance loans
- Eligibility for the DSA, including the broad range of conditions in the Equality Act of 2010
- Step-by-step instructions on applying for the DSA, along with a guide to getting the requirements accomplished
- A list of other support a disabled student can get while studying
The DSA is not exclusive to England – it is also available in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Among the conditions covered by the DSA are mental health conditions, physical and sensory disabilities, autism, and learning disabilities like ADHD.
Students qualified for the DSA will not have to pay back any money received once their program of study is over, except if they leave their course early.
Cambridge guide: Moving On Into Work
Cambridgeshire County Council’s guidance aims to help guide and advise young people aged 14-25 with additional needs into the world of work.
Cambridgeshire County Council have produced a webpage covering a range of aspects of training and employment including:
- college courses, traineeships, supported internships and apprenticeships
- volunteering, work experience and work trials
- vocational profiles
- work skills providers
- benefits
- disability employment rights
They have also produced an easy read guide.
One Page Profile
You might want to create a one page profile with your young person which highlights important information about him or her for employers.
This can include:
- What’s important to me
- What people like and admire about me
- How best to support me.
National work guide for young people with SEND
This guide, published in February 2018, highlights options for young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to help them move into paid employment including
- Supported internships
- Traineeships
- Apprenticeships
- Access to Work
Finding employment
Mencap has produced four easy-read guides for job-seekers with learning disabilities. The guides cover
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- Finding a job or work experience
- Application forms and CVs
- Going to a job interview
- Starting work
Switch Now, based in St Neots, aims to provide supported training and work experience, for young adults with learning difficulties / disabilities, to develop employability skills, with the objective to be ‘work ready’. Visit the Switch Now website
Evenbreak is a not-for-profit social enterprise set up to help match talented disabled people with employers. 
They have a Career Hive which is jam packed with relevant and accessible careers support to ease your employment journey.
In Cambridgeshire, social enterprises include Phoenix Milton, a charity based in Milton near Cambridge. It offers supported work experience and employability qualifications to young people and adults with a range of learning difficulties. The site has a concrete factory, carpentry workshops, a kitchen garden and canteen kitchen and is open to the public for the sale of products produced on site. Telephone: Tel. 01223 420669.
Life skills and internships
Whizz-Kidz: offer a range of work placement and internships opportunities, and work skills days – all designed just for young disabled people age 14-25 years old
More on the Whizz-Kidz website
Keysoe Therapy & Well‑Being Centre offers training programs centred around the equine industry, focusing on key life skills. However, we also offer ‘soft therapeutic’ pony experiences and programmes such as ‘own a pony’ day and fun experiences around our ponies. This also compliments their British Horse Society Changing Lives Through Horses programmes. You can find more details on their website.
Auticon - employment for people with Autism
Business analytics, test automation, data governance, and complex software development projects are important. IT departments demand precision and lateral thinking. This is where Auticon’s extraordinary employees come in. All their consultants are on the autism spectrum and have unique cognitive strengths, such as:
- Attention to detail
- Systematic approach to tasks
- Logical analysis
- Pattern recognition
- Error detection
- Sustained concentration
Find out more by visiting their website.
Reed Work Routes programme
Run through Reed in Partnership, part of the Reed group of employment and jobs companies – the Work Routes programme offers support for young people to gain employment or get closer to the voluntary/paid job market.
It offers help with creating CVs, developing interview skills, IT and Employability and other courses.
It starts with a one-to-one session with a job adviser to develop a personal training and support plan and then offers tailored training such as help writing a CV and applying for jobs, interview practice or training in skills like IT or customer service.
The scheme is run in partnership with the Department for Work and Pensions and can also help with the costs of travel and ongoing help once young people are in a job.
The scheme runs in Cambridge and Peterborough and offers individual support for up to 12 months. Young people are seen weekly or fortnightly for about an hour. 
Apprenticeships
Disability Rights UK has produced a guide to apprenticeships for young people with disabilities. You can download a free pdf version via their website.
Mencap has been urging employers to use apprenticeships to increase levels of employment for people with learning disabilities – currently less than 6% of adults with a known learning disability are in paid employment.
And new rules have now come into force lowering the required Maths and English grades that pupils with special educational needs have to meet as part of their apprenticeship. These are being lowered to entry level 3 following recommendations from Paul Maynard’s 2016 taskforce, which looked at the issues facing those with learning disabilities when accessing apprenticeships.
Mencap says that “by ensuring people with a learning disability are able to access apprenticeships, it will provide a route into work better suited to people with a learning disability where they can demonstrate their skills.”
Post-16 Courses
Bedazzle Performing Arts Foundation Programme – 18+ years, Saffron Walden (CB11)
This highly intensive course for those with special educational needs offers the opportunity to gain professional experience and be audition-ready. Students are able to elect to study this course at Level 2 or 3, gaining an OCR Cambridge Technical in Performing Arts. As part of the course students are also able to take Trinity Performance Exams. Please contact Bedazzle for more information, to find out costs and to request a prospectus, email: officeadmin@bedazzlearts.org or see their Website.