1. Supporting the Transition into Employment
COTEC-ENOTHE Congress,
June 17th 2016.
Supporting the Transition into Employment
Career Pathways: A Support Service for Students with Disabilities
Claire Gleeson, Kieran Lewis, Dr Clodagh Nolan, and Declan Treanor
Career Pathways Project / Unilink Occupational Therapy Service.
Disability Service, Trinity College Dublin.

2. Career Pathways
Career Pathways is a recovery-orientated and occupation- focused approach to enabling students with disabilities to manage the transition from college to employment.
Partnership between Disability Service (Declan Treanor), Unilink Occupational Therapy Service, and Careers Advisory Service (Eileen Daly and Sean Gannon within TCD, and external project officers (Laura Louise Condell and Amie Hynes-Fitzpatrick).

3. Context
College as an Opportunity
More and more students with disabilities are accessing and succeeding in higher education (AHEAD, 2015).
Employment levels of individuals with disabilities have remained significantly lower than their non-disabled peers (ESRI, 2010; NDA, 2014).
Unilink Occupational Therapy Service embedded within Disability Service for past 11 years.
1,400 students registered with the Disability Service in TCD alone which is 9% of the student population (TCD Disability Service, 2015).
Those most excluded from the labour market are often those with mental health difficulties or intellectual impairments (World Health Organisation, 2011).
The National Disability Authority (2014) maintains that disabled people are two and a half times less likely to be in work than non-disabled people.
Transition from higher education into employment can be fraught with challenges for these students (Fichten et al, 2012).

4. Research Findings / Student Needs
Key Themes that Emerged (Nolan and Gleeson, in press)
Fit
Advice for students & transition to work
Enabling the Work Environment
Building personal strategies
Enabling and building your Career
Disclosure & Reasonable Accommodations

5. Development of the Career Pathways Approach
Develop approach based upon research findings.
Bring Stakeholders together: Collaboration between Disability Service & Careers Service within TCD, and other HEIs.
Apply for Funding: €181,000 granted from the Genio Trust.
Set objectives over 2 year period in line with Disability Service / Unilink Strategic Plan.
Recruitment of staff (1 Career Adviser and 2 part-time OTs).
Establish oversight committee (Clinical Director Unilink, Heads of Service in Careers and Disability Services in TCD).
Deliver!

6. Developing the Approach: Theoretical Basis
Occupation-Focused and Occupation Based (Fisher 2013) - Learning through occupation in the student journey.
Person-Environment Occupation Model (Law et al., 1996). - Well suited to context-based model.
Recovery Orientation (Deegan, 1988; Anthony 1993).
Occupation-focused and occupation-based as described by Fisher (2013), with the focus upon facilitating a student’s engagement in his/ her occupation in the here and now; but also on enabling the student to develop transferable occupational skills throughout his / her education and in the transition into employment.
PEO – Successfully applied within Unilink over past 11 years. Most suitable for context based approach. Address participation and engagement in the student’s activities, tasks and roles, by examining the complex interaction between the person and his / her environment (Strong and Rebeiro-Gruhl 2011).
Self-direction, Individualised and person-centred, Empowerment, Non-linear, Strengths based, Peer support, Respect, Hope.

7. Outcomes 1. Develop a clearly delineated individual process
172 students / graduates with disabilities have availed of Career Pathways over the past two years.
Over 500 individual meetings have taken place between students and Occupational Therapists / Careers Advisers / AT Officer.
‘The service has given me so much help, support and encouragement – I have really grown in confidence through it.’
Focus upon developing life skills and work related skills through experiences within college journey, through engagement and reflection.
Opportunity to explore ways to manage disability in the workplace and transfer skills developed in college.

8. Monthly Workshops Annual Bootcamp Employer Events Outcomes
2 & 3. Develop a series of peer workshops and events / Connect to Employers
Monthly Workshops
Annual Bootcamp
Employer Events
80 students have attended one or more of these events and 26 Employers have connected with Career Pathways through group events.
‘Through a series of workshops and one-to-one sessions, I've been able to work on my CV and interview presentation, giving me the confidence that I need to excel in the professional world.’
‘…. communicating with peers who are in similar situations, a sense of acceptance and openness surrounding the boot camp.’
40 students attended Bootcamp in 14-15; and 40 more in

9. Outcomes
4. Share model and resources within partner HEIs in Dublin area and disseminate nationally within higher education.
26 Disability and Careers Service staff from four HEIs within the Dublin area have attended training workshops.
52 staff from student services nationally attended workshop ‘Diversity Matters’ on the 2nd March 2016
Developed Resource Guide for HEIs launched on the 2nd March.
Presented at national and international conferences.
Journal Publications submitted nationally and in development internationally.

10. Outcomes
5. Develop an online system where students can track and log their work related experiences
30+ separate resources adapted / developed for the ePortfolio System, including worker profile and work self-management programme, as well as career-focused resources.
74 students have been set up on the ePortfolio system thus far.
Student owned and his / her resource for life.
Schools / Services within TCD and externally now connecting.

11. Future Directions Funding extended to September 2016
Integration of approach into service structures within TCD.
Disability Service Student Ambassador Programme

12. Things to Consider in Supporting Students in the Transition to Employment
Disclosure – Disclosure opportunities / experiences throughout college journey.
Professional Courses – especially in the health sciences.
What college based resources are there? - Careers Services are becoming more integrated in courses rather than traditional Career Adviser model.
Move increasingly towards internship / work placement as part of college.
Building work experiences rather than ‘transition support’.

13. Thanks Genio Trust for funding the project.
Confederation of Student Services of Ireland for Contributing to the Diversity Matters Workshop
Declan Treanor (Disability Service Director) and Sean Gannon (Careers Advisory Service) for not only backing the project, but actively developing and integrating it.
Amie Hynes-Fitzpatrick and Laura Louise Condell who developed resources, delivered at workshops and events, and advised upon overall development.

14. References
Association of Higher Education and Disability (2015). Numbers of Students with Disabilities Studying in Higher Education in Ireland 2013/14. AHEAD Educational Press, Dublin.
Anthony, W. A. (1993). Recovery from mental illness; the guiding vision of the mental health service system in the 1900s. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 16,
Deegan, P.E. (1988). Recovery: The lived experience of rehabilitation. Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 9, 4,
Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) (2010). Peer Review of the Economic and Social Research Institute.
Fichten, C.S., Jorgensen, S., Havel, A., Barile, M., Ferraro, V., Landry, M.È., Fiset, D., et al. (2012). What happens after graduation? Outcomes, employment, and recommendations of recent junior/community college graduates with and without disabilities. Disability and Rehabilitation, 34(11),
Fisher, A. (2013). Occupation-centred, occupation-based, occupation-focused: Same, same or different? Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 20, 162–173

15. References
Law, M., Cooper, B., Strong, S., Stewart, D., Rigby, P., & Letts, L. (1996). The Person-Environment- Occupation Model: A transactive approach to occupational performance. Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy. 63(1), 9-23.
National Disability Authority, (2014). Downloaded on the from overview/.
Nolan, C., & Gleeson, C.I. (In press). The Transition to Employment: The Perspectives of Students and Graduates with disabilities. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research.
Royal College of Psychiatrists (2011). Mental health of students in higher education College Report CR166. London: Royal College of Psychiatrists.
TCD Disability Service (2015). Disability Service Bi‐Annual Student Statistics – end of Michaelmas term 14‐15. Available at Annual%20Stats%20end%20of%20Michaelmas%20term% pdf. Downloaded on
World Health Organisation. (2011). World report on disability. Geneva, Switzerland: Author

16. Questions