The Project

Background

Despite the intensified efforts made by the EU, to promote equality for all its citizens in all life sectors, ensuring that no one is left behind, autistic people face very high levels of discrimination in all aspects of life, according to Autism-Europe’s feedback on the roadmap for the Disability Rights for 2021-2030.

Autistic adults are globally disadvantaged and present considerably lower employment rates and education engagement compared not only to people without disabilities but also to groups with other forms of disability. Research overwhelmingly demonstrates disappointing employment rates for this group. The vast majority is unemployed & for those who do have gainful employment, underemployment is common (Karali, 2020). Both getting access to as well as staying in the labor market are very challenging with significant negative consequences for their personal and social life, quality of life, their dignity, social inclusion and self-fulfillment. (“Autism & work. Together we can”).

Across Europe there is a serious lack of appropriately adapted education and training that could enable people on the spectrum to gain the adequate skills that are required for work. Lack of access to all levels of education, lack of tailored training opportunities and stigma are reported as major challenges for their employment.

Generally required or expected social and communication skills pose considerable challenges for autistic adults, making their integration and success in the labour market significantly more difficult. At the same time, however, they possess outstanding characteristics and valuable skills that open up opportunities and make them potentially excellent employees for certain jobs. With tailored education, training and ongoing support, individuals with ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) could flourish in employment environments (Walsh, Lydon & Healy, 2014).

The high rates of their unemployment, the inequalities observed in education and employment opportunities offered to them, adult educators’ need for effective tools to work with them & offer them tailored upskilling pathways and the fact that the numbers of children diagnosed with ASD is increasingly rising. This is what we have based our motivation to work on the TalentED project!

Goals

TALENTED’ s overall goal is to contribute to autistic adults’ employability and social inclusion by bringing qualitative improvements in the existing adult training offer.

Specifically, the project aims at:

  • Developing tailor made and attractive activation, guidance, and upskilling tools for autistic adults based on their strong attributes and labor market opportunities.
  • Stimulating autistic adults’ motivation and increasing their engagement in lifelong learning and employment.
  • Increasing autistic adults’ abilities for conscious educational and professional choices & knowledge on their employment rights.
  • Increasing autistic adults’ ability to enter and succeed in the open market by further developing and perfectioning key employment competences and soft skills & developing their stress coping skills.
  • Equipping adult educators with valuable knowledge, skills and innovative tools to support and empower autistic adults through their transition to the labor market.
  • Raising awareness on autistic adults’ strengths, abilities and singularities, confronting false stereotypes against them & promoting reasonable accommodation.

Target groups

The main target groups of the TalentED project are three:

Target Group 1

Autistic adults, 18 years and over of both genders, with medium and high functioning autism who are unemployed,employed in a part time/ low paid job, in sheltered settings or with fewer opportunities and want to enter the open market or/and find a better fitting job position. Moreover, discouraged autistic people not believing in their strengths or believing that there are no job positions; who have stopped looking for work and educational opportunities. Also, autistic adults out of education who want to investigate meaningful educational possibilities or/and autistic adults who follow a kind of vocational training and want to combine their hard skills training with employment competences and soft skills training for better employment chances.

Target Group 2

Adult educators/trainers and other educational professionals, working/willing to work on autistic adults’ employment and education in formal and non-formal educational bodies, both private and public, and other structures providing empowerment/training opportunities for the target group such as municipalities, employment agencies, NGOs, support structures, special education centers, Lifelong Learning Institutes etc.

Target Group 3

Labor actors, Employers and HR professionals mainly in the identified by the project fitting jobs with emphasis to social, green and digital sectors.

The project will complementary target autistic adults’ families and caregivers and other professionals directly working with them such as social workers, mental health experts, development educators, behavior practitioners, autism and disability specialists to take advantage of their expertise and knowledge for the results’ development , increase synergies, multiplying effects and promoting results’ further use.

Project results

In line with the project objectives, TalentED will develop the following resources:

  • Handbook, activation program, career & educational guidance tool
  • Training pack for autistic adults (curriculum, Learners’ folder, Educators’ resource pack)
  • Training course plan & intense training program for adult educators
  • Empowerment cycle plan for autistic learners
  • Awareness pack consisting of “Myths and Truths about an Autistic employee” publication, “Autistic Strengths make Outstanding employees” video series and “Autistic employees’ sensitivities and singularity” manual
  • An informal peer mentoring network.
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