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Mentoring and training people with disability
MAC objective 3: Accessible training, cadetship and mentoring opportunities for people with disability
What can we do?
Agencies should consider providing access to training opportunities and work experience in the APS to appropriately qualified applicants with disability. This gives them an opportunity to gain practical experience in conjunction with their studies and allows them to be more competitive for jobs in the APS on completion of their studies.
1. Provide work experience and training schemes
As well as providing opportunities for people with disability, training schemes benefit agencies, helping them to address skills shortages in particular fields by encouraging qualified people with disability to apply for those skilled vacancies on completion of the training scheme.
Under the Public Service Regulations, agencies are able to put in place training schemes to engage people on a non-ongoing basis to gain skills and experience to assist them to participate in the workforce.
Centrelink has developed a work experience programme for students and graduates with disability.
2. Use or develop mentoring programmes
The Government funds a range of mentoring programmes to assist young people in making the transition to work. Some, including the Willing and Able Mentoring Program,73 specifically cater to students with disability, matching university students with mentors in appropriate sectors and providing support to both mentors and students through briefing sessions.
The Willing and Able Mentoring Program (WAM) was established through a collaboration between Deakin University and the University of Melbourne in 2000.
It is available for any job seeker or tertiary student who has a disability dependent on funding support. The programme matches job seekers or tertiary students who have a disability with mentors in leading organisations in the job seekers’/students' field of interest for a series of approximately eight discussions. These discussions concentrate on acclimatising students to the work environment and strategies that will better equip them to compete for jobs in their chosen field.
WAM was successfully piloted for general job seekers who have a disability in 2005 with support from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, and is now available for job seekers who have a disability on a fee for service basis through Job Network or Disability Employment Network services.
3. Consider special graduate recruitment programmes
The ACT Government successfully used the services of Disability Works Australia in its 2006 graduate recruitment campaign. The target for the campaign was for 50 per cent of the successful graduates to be people with disability.
The advertisement for ACT graduate positions encouraged persons with disability to apply and to contact Disability Works Australia to access an alternative application process. ‘Online’ advertisements incorporated links to Disability Works Australia’s website. Disability Works Australia also distributed the advertisements through its own networks, encouraging the Disability Employment Network to identify suitably qualified applicants.
Disability Works Australia interviewed each applicant with disability and prepared profiles of suitably qualified candidates, outlining the reasonable adjustments that would need to be made to the recruitment processes and the workplace modifications they would require, if successful. A Disability Works Australia representative also attended the assessment centre to address any unanticipated accessibility issues that might arise during the recruitment procedures.
The outcome of the process was that applicants with disability supported by the National Disability Recruitment Coordinator successfully competed, on merit, with applicants without disability. Seven people in a total intake of 17, or 41 per cent identified as having a disability.
In the APS, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations used the services of the National Disability Recruitment Coordinator in its 2006 graduate recruitment programme. Four applicants with disability, who had registered with Disability Works Australia, were employed in the 2006 intake.
