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Podcast Episode 61  We all understand why work is an important step toward independent living, but all to often the employment opportunities are limited for young people with additional needs. This weeks guest Pascal Fintoni is not only helping to create employment opportunities in digital marketing, but he is also having the conversations around reasonable adjustment that will help create a greater number and a wider choice of employment options.

Pascal talks about his work with the North East Autism Society, in the UK, around developing an internal marketing program designed and developed by young people with autism. This not only helps them to develop digital marketing skills but also offers them a voice in determining where the future of the organization lies.

In addition, as an employer, Pascal is making sure that he has the kind of conversations with other employers that will help change perceptions and make the term reasonable mean exactly what it should mean: ‘Reasonable’. As he points out most employers make and have been making reasonable adjustments for their employees every day.

It is forward thinking employers who understand what reasonable adjustments are that will ultimately benefit from a motivated workforce with varied skills.

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Podcast Episode 62  Only successful organizations can provide sustainable, long term paid employment and expand to provide more job opportunities. This weeks guest Patrick Bardsley and Tim Howe from Spectrum Designs certainly understand this. Spectrum Designs is a social enterprise making custom apparel, such as hats, hoodies, and T-shirts. Spectrum Designs focusses on the enterprise as much as the social, and in doing so continues to expand and create more employment opportunities for young people with autism.

Patrick and Tim share the story of Spectrum Designs, how it grew from an idea into a business that now provides custom made apparel products to some of the biggest companies in the world. This didn’t happen because Spectrum just focused on just providing employment opportunities: it happened because it focuses on quality and on-time delivery as this is what matters to the end customer. By doing this the business has grown to now provide even more jobs for people with autism.

Spectrum Designs is the perfect example of how to marry the social and the enterprise, and illustrates how simply delivering a quality product on time can drastically change the perceptions of and expectations of young people with additional needs.

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Podcast Episode 63  Finding a supportive safe space for our children to have a variety of social experiences is so important. In this episode, we hear about CASPA which is providing that space and doing a whole lot more. Helen Dyer from CASPA explains not only how CASPA came about and what it does in terms of providing social experiences for a range of age groups. Importantly as CASPA has grown and the young people who started with them have gotten older CASPA has realized the needs of its young people are changing. So CASPA is expanding what it does now focusing on not providing a space to build social skills but also developing programs which help their young people develop those key skills which are transferable into the workplace.

CASPA provides a vital link for young people to begin the journey into work and greater independence. What the world needs is more organizations like this so that an independent future can become a reality for more young people with additional needs.

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Podcast Episode 64 What next? is a question we constantly ask ourselves as we help our young people navigate through the education system. As they get older and age out of the system, this question becomes more urgent and often the answer isn’t as easy to find. This week’s guests Adeel and Anthony asked that exact question and when no answer was obvious they created their own solution: Able Coffee Roasters.

Able Coffee Roasters is on a mission to create sustainable paid employment for young people with additional needs. Through the use of innovative techniques like point of view video modeling and focusing on making accommodations so that each young person can excel at the tasks they are given, Able Coffee Roasters is answering for some young people the question of what next.

What Anthony and Adeel are doing is not only inspiring because it has the potential to help so many young people on their journey to independence but is inspiring because it shows what is possible if we focus not on the question but on looking around for potential solutions in our own communities.

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Podcast Episode 65 It’s not only about finding work, it’s about matching the skills of the person with the job. This is the view of Derek Groves, from Employment Futures, who discusses the idea of vocational matching and the many benefits it brings to a young person with additional needs and to employers. He also talks about how employers still have some way to go in terms of being flexible in their employment practices, especially when it comes to the use of a traditional interviewing process which simply does not allow some young people to showcase their strengths.

Another issue that Derek addresses is positive disclosure, that is how much to disclose to an employer about an individual’s additional needs. Although, as he says, its a personal choice in many instances, it can help the employer match the person with a job role and ensure that reasonable adjustments are possible without being costly or disruptive to the workplace.

The work of organizations like Employment Futures is so important in breaking down the barriers into work and helping employers change their perceptions about employing young people with additional needs.

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Podcast Episode 67 Did you know what you wanted to be when you grew up? Most of us didn’t but we figured it out along the way because we were given opportunities for part-time work or work experience. For many young people with additional needs, this doesn’t happen, meaning they don’t always have a clear idea of their options.

In this episode, Guy Chaudoir from Scope explains why this shouldn’t be the case, and discusses some ways to help young people increase their options. This includes changing the way they approach applying for jobs and the interview process. It’s also about changing the perceptions of employers and Guy explains the work Scope has been doing in this area.

Scope provides a bridge to employment by helping young people with additional needs to find their own path into work. They also help open doors with employers, so the path can continue forward for both the young person and their employer.

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Podcast Episode 66 It’s fine to be aware and even try and understand autism but actually what matters most is acceptance. This is the view of Kieran Rose, also known as The Autistic Advocate. Kieran has autism so he speaks from personal experiences and explains why he believes that acceptance is what is needed even more than awareness.

Kieran shares his personal journey and provides practical advice for both parents and young people with autism on how to manage the challenges they will face. He also discusses the way people with autism are often stereotyped and the impact that has. He also talks about what he sees as an industry that has been built around autism, and how that is actually contributing to delaying real change.

Kieran might be talking specifically about autism, but the really his message applies to everyone with an additional need. Barriers would fall much quicker, especially in things like employment, if people focused on positive acceptance of each individual’s strengths and their weaknesses, not just passive awareness.

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Podcast Episode 68 One of the best things about becoming an adult is that no one can tell you what to do, when to do it and what time to be home. However, that’s not always the case for young people with additional needs. Often they still have rules in place that don’t apply to their peers. Stay Up Late is all about changing that and making it easy for anyone to stay up late, stay out late and enjoy the social lives they want on their terms.

Paul Richards the founder of Stay Up Late explains where the idea came from when he saw first-hand what happens when people are not able to have choose how they spend their evenings.Kate Ogden the manager of Gig Buddies which buddies people up so they can go to gigs in a safe and supportive way discusses how gig buddies works, how they make sure people are safe and how they are expanding the model around the world though a franchise model.

Stay Up Late is such a simple idea but one that does so much more than what it says it does, it promotes integration, acceptance and provides people with additional needs a solid base upon which they can start to build a social life of their choice.

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Podcast Episode 69 Accepting ourselves by embracing our strengths and understanding our weaknesses is key to our own happiness. How to do this is the theme of this episode with Alis Rowe founder of The Curly Hair Project.

Alis talks about her own journey from when she was diagnosed in her early twenties with Asperger syndrome. She explains why she created The Curly Hair Project, what is does, and how it aims to help people on the autism spectrum and their families. Alis also shares some practical ideas that she has implemented to enable her to navigate difficult situations and live the life she wants. Some of the ideas are simple, and could apply to any young person with additional needs, but they make a massive day to day difference to someone’s life once they start using them.

Alis also advocates the importance of putting yourself first and making decisions around what is best for you, not others. She acknowledges this won’t always be the easiest option because it requires you to sometimes be very honest with those around you and often with yourself.

Finally, Alis reminds us to be ourselves because, as she says, “Where the magic happens in life is where you embrace the natural strengths and interests that a person has.” We could all do with a little more magic in our lives and listening to Alis should serve as a reminder to all of us that we are so much more than what the world sees on the surface.

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Podcast Episode 70 We can sometimes feel that we are alone in our journey but often by simply looking around we realise we are not. The focus of this week’s podcast, Yoocan proves this in the way they provide an online space to share stories and to inspire each other. In this interview, Moshe Gaon co-founder of Yoocan explains why Yoocan exists and what its primary aims and objectives are.

Moshe also talks about how important collaboration is in advancing the way we do things and helping speed up the pace of change for young people with additional needs. He explains why we need to look outside what we know into other areas to find solutions that have been created for other reasons but help us to solve our own problems.

Moshe also talks about why Yoocan is a social enterprise, not a charity and why this is important in the long term not only for the success of Yoocan as a platform for collaboration but also why social enterprises are a better way to bring about real sustainable change.

The hint in the name really but actually Yoocan is about more than what each of us can do it is about understanding that you can do more when you look at what others have done before you or are doing beside you.

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