Get involved!

Richard Lamplough writes:

A truly diverse work force can bring a rich variety of skills, expertise and life experiences to your business.

At Aspirations For Life we are wary about making generalisations about people with learning disabilities.  It's usually true that  people with learning disabilities  value qualities such as good time-keeping, a positive attititude, regular work attendance, willingness to learn and that all-important desire to keep their jobs as highly as your very best employees. What might also be true is that people with learning disabilities will be a little slower, and take a little longer to learn new tasks than other people at  your organisation.

We suggest that you read a couple of pages in this part of the website - Testimonial and View from a boss.  Perhaps the most useful page to you will be the Nearest support agency to you page. There will almost certainly be a specialist agency or support organisation/individual that can give you any practical guidance you need and, if needed, a job coach for the first few weeks of employment, all of this at no cost to you.  When you look at these pages if there's no information for your specific geographical area contact me directly (you will see my details) and I will give you details you need by the end of the working day.

Please bear in mind that "getting involved" might not necessarily mean offering a paid job.  Offering a work experience placement is a great way for you to establish how you can match a potential employee with tasks that need doing at your organisation, tasks that you think you might be able to turn into a part-time or ful-time job at a later date.

Perhaps it's best to end this account by giving you two positive stories.  There's a large well-known supermarket ten minutes walk from me who employ somebody with learning disabilities as a trolley porter.  He has  practically no reading or writing skills, but he is one of their most hard-working members of staff, has been with them for about eight years, and is absolutely great with the customers who love his warm smile and his offers to help them with their shopping.

The same supermarket have recently taken on somebody on the autistic spectrum for 25 hours week in their accounts department.  This individual struggles a little with the customers, but because he works behind the scenes this doesn't matter at all.  What matters is that he genuinely enjoys inputting invoice details on a computer and does so at a speed that amazes his colleagues.

So you will understand why we are wary about making generalisations.... except one perhaps.  Somebody with learning disabilities will learn many things from working at your organisation.  We can guarantee that you, your colleagues and perhaps even your customers will learn just as much back.