The New Grant to Help People with Autism Get Into Work

This summer, the government announced a new grant to help people with autism get into work. This grant totals a whopping £7.6 million and has been launched by the Local Supported Employment (LSE) initiative. 

The financial support is intended to help with assigning “job coaches”, engaging employers with supporting autism at work and providing practical in-work support to help develop careers for people with autism and learning difficulties. 

Autism is something that is acquiring more awareness as the years go on. It is a great thing that the need to support autistic adults getting into work is being recognised by the government. Financial support in this area can really help decrease the disability employment gap between neurodiverse and neurotypical people. That is a very worthwhile cause. 

Let’s talk a little more about why this is such a worthy cause.

How Do People with Autism Struggle at Work?

To further understand why this grant is necessary and why we should be talking about it, it is worthwhile to look at how people with autism struggle at work. The more we know about autism, the more we can support those around us. 

The following are some ways in which adults with autism can struggle in work environments: 

• Differences in processing information: People with autism may struggle to process information, particularly verbal and social information, the same way as someone neurotypical. This means that receiving instructions at work can be more confusing and there is a bigger opportunity for miscommunication. 

• Difficulty in making connections: Autistic adults can find it difficult to make and maintain connections. This difference makes it harder for them to make friends at work and feel connected to those around them, leading to isolation and poor integration into the company. 

• Emotional dysregulation: Finding it difficult to regulate your emotions is an important aspect of autism. Some autistic adults can get very upset or distressed at things a neurotypical person might not notice. Dealing with such intense emotions can make it difficult to stay at work during more difficult times. 

• Misunderstanding from others: Certain behaviours of autism include having fewer (or more) facial expressions, struggling with social queues, and finding it hard to make connections means that people with autism are often misunderstood at work. Sometimes their symptoms are mistaken for rudeness, bluntness, or disinterest, and this can lessen their opportunities at work. People with autism are often held back because of misunderstandings and lack of awareness of the condition.

Why Is This Grant Important?

Regarding the new grant to help people with autism and learning difficulties get into work, the minister for Disabled People, Health and Work Chloe Smith MP stated,

“Disabled people deserve the same opportunities to start, stay and succeed in employment as everyone else.”

The government team behind this initiative have publicly stated that the ambition behind the grant is to:

• provide further evidence to local authorities of the value of supported employment
• help drive further investment and
• secure effective employment for more people with learning disabilities, autism or both

The grant aims to help narrow this gap between the employment of disabled and non-disabled people and open the eyes of employers and authorities to the genuine benefits of doing so. For too long disabled people have been overlooked in the world of employment. They have been dismissed and seen as too difficult to employ. However, disabled people offer a skilled, diverse, and talented recruitment tool that has so many benefits in store for any employers who act inclusively. 

For people with autism and learning difficulties, there are many barriers in place when it comes to working. Non-inclusive applications, biased recruitment, non-accessible workplaces, discrimination, and more, all lead to a difficult picture in the world of work. Processing and learning difficulties are still very misunderstood and misrepresented in our society. 

Having such barriers to work can have a direct impact on disabled people’s self-esteem and general mental well-being. To be rejected and treated poorly so frequently can have a very serious effect on those applicants’ health and well-being. We all deserve equal opportunity to work and we shouldn’t underestimate how damaging it can be when this isn’t provided. 

Offering more equality in work for people with autism can have positive benefits, therefore, for both employee and employer. 

Striving for a Better Future 

This new grant to help people with autism get into work is a great step in the right direction for the U.K. People with autism still face many barriers and roadblocks in recruitment and employment and this is unfair. Everyone deserves the same chance to work in a job they like and are happy in. 

Making things more equitable through schemes like this is exactly what we should be doing as a society. We need more equality, diversity, and inclusion for every type of disability and difference. 

If you want to learn more about disabilities and how they impact work, check out our Disability Advice Hub. You will find plenty of resources to help you learn about a range of conditions and disabilities so that you can be more understanding and inclusive going forward. 

If you are someone with autism looking for a new job with an inclusive employer, you can do so on our disability-friendly job board. Check out our dedicated page on Low-Stress Jobs.

Everyone deserves a fair chance at work, let’s work together to make that happen.