You’re about to leave school and move into your adult life! It’s an exciting time, full of new possibilities, but it can be daunting, too, as you try to navigate all the different post-school options.
To help you decide on a path that is best for you, here’s a simple guide to the various options. But remember, you can try more than one to see what’s right for you. It might even be a combination of these options that best meets your goals. There is no one size fits all answer!
- Further education or training
- Day programs
- Work options
- Supported employment
- Open employment
- Volunteering
Further education or training
If you’d like to build your skills through further study or gain some experience through training, there are many options that can suit school leavers who have a disability, including:
- University – a higher education and research institution granting academic degrees in many subjects
- TAFE – an Australia-wide organisation providing vocational education and training
- Vocational Education and Training (VET) – offering skills and training for specific jobs and industries
- Registered Training Organisations (RTO) – delivering VET programs with the Australian Skills Quality Authority
- Apprenticeships/traineeships – providing qualifications through on-the-job training with an employer and classroom-based learning.
Day programs
Day programs have a recreational focus. They can be a great fit for many young people with disability with high support needs. They provide opportunities to participate in the community or focus on independent life skills.
Day programs are run by disability service providers and community organisations. You might go to a centre each week or do activities out in the community. There are lots of things to consider when choosing a day program, like how far you can travel, what your support needs are, and, importantly, what activities you enjoy.
In the past few years, exciting new day program options have emerged. For example, Avenue, which is different from your traditional day program. Avenue provides opportunities to take part in their work or social program, or both. In Avenue Work, participants complete real work tasks by joining microbusinesses that operate in a supported environment. So even if you don’t have a goal of open employment, you can still access meaningful and purpose-driven work, and share in the profits. At Avenue Social, the team designs a varied social calendar according to participants’ interests and input, as well as supporting participants to develop their individual skills and integrating learning into the social activities, such as independence, money-handling and communication.
Other day programs, like Plus, specialise in supporting people with more complex behaviours. Plus is a brand new day program that builds participant skills across four areas: daily life; health and wellbeing; work and social. Therapeutic services are also offered in the same place as the day program, in a more integrated, seamless way. They believe that this integrated model achieves the best outcomes for their people.
If a day program is something you’d like to pursue, take the time to research the ones in your area that best meet your needs and goals.
Your options for a future in work
Work is a great way to make a purposeful contribution, as well as earn money. How we choose to make our contribution will depend on our unique hopes, skills, abilities, interests, and personal situation. You might decide to look for a job straight away, or join a training program to give you more on-the-job work experience and confidence.
Here are some options for work you could choose from.
Supported employment
Supported employment is a job where a person with a disability gets assistance with their work tasks. It includes support to do the work, learn new skills and set goals.
This type of job is through Australian Disability Enterprises (ADE). They are businesses that make products or provide services. They are explicitly designed to provide employment to people with disability, but this employment is not paid at award-wage, and is not mainstream (you will not have colleagues who do not have a disability).
Open employment
Open employment is also called mainstream employment. It is where people with and without disability do their jobs together in the same workplace.
If this is your goal, it is important to make sure you think about what training and support you may require. There are several pathways that people with disability can take to access open employment:
Disability Employment Services (DES)
DES providers can help you find jobs to apply to, and fill out applications. Their aim is to place people with disability into work. If you are already confident in your work-ready skills, this could be a good option. If you think you need a bit more support to build up your confidence and skills, you might want to consider joining a training pathway before, or alongside, enrolling with a DES.
Specialised training pathways
If you want to build up your job-ready skills and confidence before applying to jobs, you may want to find a work-readiness training pathway. This will give you support tailored to your abilities, interests and support needs.
In your last year of school, or when you leave, you can access NDIS funding called School Leaver Employment Support (SLES). You can use this funding to pay for a training pathway with a SLES provider of your choice.
Specialist providers like Jigsaw can connect you with valuable vocational opportunities. This includes work experience, mentoring, on-the-job training, and skills like time management. They will also support your search for mainstream employment with job interview training, resume preparation and more. Jigsaw believes SLES enables a type of support that can best meet the needs of many school leavers with disability. It can help you to reach your potential in the world of work from day one.
Only school leavers with an NDIS plan are eligible for SLES, but do not worry if you don’t have SLES funding, or if you left school more than two years ago. You can also access providers like Jigsaw with Core and Capacity Building NDIS funding, for example “Finding and Keeping a Job”.
Community or volunteer work
Volunteering means giving your time freely to help a person, cause, or group. It’s an excellent way to expose yourself to new challenges, and gain job skills and work experience. Volunteering can also build your independence to transition into employment. It can even increase your wellbeing and reduce stress and loneliness.
So many organisations rely on help from volunteers. It might be an animal welfare group, op shop, charity or community organisation like Meals on Wheels.
And you don’t have to go it alone. If you feel you’d like support to volunteer, you can apply for an NDIS-funded support worker through a package called Core funding, under the category of ‘Assistance with social and community participation’.
As you can see, there are lots of options! Before settling on a particular pathway, spend some time thinking about what your goals are, how you like to spend your time, and what your support needs are. Then once you’ve narrowed down your choices, do a trial day or two. It will help you make up your mind about whether it is the right fit for you. And don’t forget; you can choose more than one option!
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This information is provided by Fighting Chance - Find out more about the services they offer school-leavers.
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