Irish Wheelchair Association Employment Programme Wins National Award
Today we are delighted to learn that Ability, Irish Wheelchair Association’s employment skills programme, has been awarded a Star Award from Aontas, the national adult learning organisation in Ireland. This is a significant achievement for our Ability programme, which only began in October 2018 and we are thrilled that it has been recognised in this way.
Irish Wheelchair Association’s Ability programme provides job seeking and employability skills coaching to young people with physical disabilities. We currently have over eighty people registered on our programme nationwide and many of our members have moved onto paid employment in areas such as social media, administration, health and wellbeing.
According to Imelda Gaffney “The purpose of our Ability Programme is to offer holistic support for young people with physical disabilities who are looking for work. Traditional ‘job seeker supports’ are very limited with employees expected to fit quickly into existing structures. But our Ability programme is about helping employees and employers to find new opportunities. We support our participants individually, so they are able to access the workplace for themselves.
“We are thrilled that our Ability programme is an Aontas Star Award winner because it recognises Irish Wheelchair Association’s commitment to adult learning and that we are on the right track, supporting young people with disabilities to reach their full potential” said Imelda Gaffney.
Irish Wheelchair Association’s Ability Programme is part of a national Ability Programme funded by the European Social Fund and the Department of Social Protection. The programme received funding 2018 – 2021 and has recently been notified that funding has been extended to continue the programme.
