Our employment service helps people with a learning disability get a job
We know finding work can be a challenge for people with a learning disability, difficulty or autism, so we have designed our programmes to give you all the support and guidance you need to successfully start your careers journey.
Careers guidance meetings are available to people on our Supported internship and Employ Me programmes. A careers guidance meeting is an impartial, one-to-one meeting between yourself and a professionally qualified careers adviser.
What is Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG)?
CEIAG at Mencap helps you develop the knowledge and skills you need to make informed choices, supporting you along your career journey. Our programmes have careers advice, information and guidance embedded within them and cover a range of career activities designed to build your confidence and help you get the job you want.
Example activities are shown below and in our careers journey roadmap:
- Career quizzes
- Vocational profiling (when we support you in making a plan that will help you make choices about your jobs and future).
- Skills assessments
- Labour market information (this is information about how many work opportunities are available in different job sectors and industries. We explore this information with you to help you understand your career options).
- CV workshops
- Employability skills workshops
- Employer encounters
- Level 6 career meetings and plans (a level 6 careers meeting is a one-to-one meeting with our expert Careers Advisor).
- Training and education provider encounters
- Careers conversations
- Careers fairs
- Interview techniques
- Work experience
- Taster days
Careers guidance you can trust
We recognise that effective careers guidance is the driving force to securing positive futures. Our programmes follow the Gatsby career benchmarks, a robust framework for developing and delivering high quality careers activities, which we evaluate and review our provision against regularly.
Support from a qualified careers adviser
Learners on programme have access to a Level 6 qualified Careers Adviser who is a member of the Career Development Institute (CDI). The Career Development Institute (CDI) are a trusted body that qualified career development professionals are registered with, following their code of ethics.
Feedback from learners after their career meetings
I now have a clearer understanding about job ideas.”
My career meetings were useful and helped with my learning and understanding of labour market information, career pathways and how to manage my own career.”
What is the right job for me?
Deciding what sort of job to apply for can be difficult when there are so many different types of work to choose from. The best thing to do is to think about the things you like to do and then look at the jobs that include those sort of activities.
Labour Market Information (LMI) provides a general guide to jobs and the job market. This is important when making career decisions, so that information about opportunities available now and in the future can be considered.
To help with this, 'LMI for All' - an online provider funded by the Department for Education, have created a fun career tool that matches your skills and interests to jobs. This tool is called the Skillometer.
They also provide another tool called the Careerometer that gives you more information about different jobs.
Organisations who offer additional careers information
Introducing our Careers Leader
Maggi Pugh is our named Careers Lead in England.
We proactively seek to build relationships and positively welcome contact from providers relating to pathways available. If you are an employer or education provider requiring more information please get in touch.