Quality assurance

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Disability Employment Services

Disability Employment Services are offered through organisations that are contracted by the Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR).

What Disability Employment Services do

Disability Employment Services assists people with disability, injury or health conditions to secure and maintain sustainable employment in the open labour market. Disability Employment Services provides individually tailored assistance to participants, including capacity building, training, work experience and other interventions to help participants obtain suitable employment. Once in open employment, Ongoing Support in the workplace is also available to all participants who require it.

Disability Employment Services includes two demand-driven programs:

Disability Employment Services - Disability Management Services provides services to job seekers with temporary or permanent disability, injury, or health condition who require the assistance of a disability employment service and who may require flexible ongoing support but are not expected to need regular, long-term support in the workplace, and
Disability Employment Services – Employment Support Services are available to those job seekers with permanent disability and who are assessed as needing regular long-term ongoing support in the workplace.

Disability Employment Services are uncapped, meaning that every eligible job seeker can have immediate access to services to help them secure and maintain open employment.

In most cases, job seekers will be referred to Disability Employment Services providers following a Job Capacity Assessment. The Job Capacity Assessment will determine a person’s eligibility for Disability Employment Services based on the nature of their disability, injury or health condition and the assessed need for ongoing support in the workplace. A Job Capacity Assessment is not required for job seekers with disability commencing in Disability Employment Services as Job in Jeopardy, Eligible School Leavers or Special Class Clients. These job seekers will be directly registered by Disability Employment Services providers.

Some Disability Employment Services participants have an obligation under Social Security Law to work with an employment services provider in order to continue receiving their Centrelink payments.

Disability Employment Services providers will work with job seekers to negotiate an individually tailored pathway to employment (an Employment Pathway Plan). The Employment Pathway Plan will identify the mix of vocational and non vocational activities that job seekers need, and Disability Employment Services providers deliver, to achieve employment. Depending on the needs of the individual job seeker, the Employment Pathway Plan will integrate education, training, non vocational assistance, work experience, job search requirements and other support to address identified barriers.

Disability Employment Services providers must be able to:

help all eligible participants, regardless of their level of disadvantage, by providing individually tailored assistance to develop pathways into sustainable employment,
build linkages with employers to understand and meet their skills and labour needs, including working with employers to identify job vacancies and match suitable candidates to those vacancies
connect participants to appropriate skills development opportunities, and
build linkages and work cooperatively with other stakeholders, such as local community and health services, Registered Training Organisations, state, territory and local government, and other service providers.

Services will be tailored to the individual needs and circumstances of each participant. Irrespective of which program the participant is in, the Disability Employment Services provider will:

undertake any necessary assessments or evaluations of the participant
provide services or interventions required to address the participant’s vocational and non vocational barriers to employment, including work trial
assist with job search, job placement, workplace assessments and modifications, as required
provide ongoing support to help maintain employment post a 26 week employment outcome to those participants that need it; and
arrange a Program Review once the participant has received 18 months of service.

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Contents

Quality assurance

In this section:

Disability Employment Services

What Disability Employment Services do