Supported Employment Past, Present, and Future – Part 2
Supported Employment Past, Present, and Future – Part 2
Engaging discussions at the 2025 annual national conference identified trends and approaches for key issues in supported employment and suggestions on how to move forward.
At the 2025 Annual National Supported Employment Conference, the session Beyond Barriers: Supported Employment Past, Present, and Future outlined:
- the history of disability employment and supported employment in Canada, and
- the federal government’s implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and key activities on which CASE and our members can continue to focus.
You’ll find a summary of that presentation in Part 1.
The session presenters — CASE board members Annette Borrows, Edina Markovitz, Ernie Thiessen, Maureen Haan, and Deb Hotchkiss, and CASE Executive Director Joanna Goode — also facilitated group discussions around current issues in the supported employment sector. Trends and approaches for key issues were identified and thoughts on how we could move forward were suggested.
This post, Part 2, outlines the results of these engaging discussions. At the end of the post, we offer a way for you to contribute to the discussion.
Key Issues in the Supported Employment Sector
and Collaborative Actions to Move Forward
Natural Supports
Current Trends and Approaches
- Not everyone has family or friends.
- It’s hard for people to get outside of their own experience.
- Parent groups are supporting other parents.
How to Move Forward
- Thinking about supports long before the workplace.
- More education and skill building around encouraging children and youth to be independent.
- Workshops led by people with lived experience, for example by parents who have children with disabilities.
- More parent partnerships and groups to share experiences and knowledge.
Post-Secondary Skills and Education
Current Trends and Approaches
- Literacy levels impact education.
- Need more adaptations and accommodations in education.
- Multiple layers of disability may require many accommodations.
- Language and cultural barriers get in the way of assessments.
How to Move Forward
- Shift how assessments are conducted in high school.
- Use customized assessments.
- Offer more disability confidence training.
- Encourage expectations of post-secondary education for youth with disabilities.
Employers
Current Trends and Approaches
- Lunch and Learn is a popular model.
- Employers fear making mistakes.
- It takes time to build relationships with employers.
- Employers think hiring persons with disabilities is charity.
How to Move Forward
- Support the HR managers.
- Go to the employers, for instance more collaboration with Chambers of Commerce and other business groups.
- Reduce fear by building relationships and through awards, ambassadors, and mentorships.
- Promote hiring using a skills-based approach to demonstrate that it’s not charity.
- Develop legislation for fair wages.
Stigma
Current Trends and Approaches
- There is a fear of accommodations, and efficiency is often valued over people.
- Employers think that all persons with disabilities share the same needs and challenges. When one person doesn’t work out, they don’t want to hire another person with disabilities.
- The medical model is historically rooted, even in the charitable and supported employment sectors.
- Some of the stereotypes have changed and some of the conversations are different now.
How to Move Forward
- Normalize disability by talking about it and by increasing representation.
- Start earlier, for instance with parents, to normalize early inclusion.
- Work with clients to find solutions around disclosure.
- Encourage the removal of policies that require a certain percentage of workers with disabilities. Encourage a shift towards inclusive policies that do not necessarily require disclosure.
- Create psychologically safe spaces where employers can ask questions without the fear of not being knowledgeable or politically correct.
- Identify employers who are champions.
Lack of Accommodation
Current Trends and Approaches
- Accommodations tend to be siloed into different disability groups, with a tendency to think they all have the same needs.
- Lack of consistency and flexibility.
- Accommodations require disclosure to the employer. The employer requires disclosure to recognize that the investment is worthwhile.
How to Move Forward
- Create a centralized funding pool for accommodations that follows workers with disabilities.
- A mechanism connected to the Canada Revenue Agency, for instance employers being able to claim expenses.
- Sometimes it’s about creativity and looking at a situation with a different lens, rather than making it about money. For example, remote work was suddenly an acceptable option during the pandemic.
Measurement and Research
Current Trends and Approaches
- It’s difficult to track people in the long-term.
- Lack of segmented data by sector and by disability.
- What benchmarks do we use for new programs and services?
- Does it address the actual barriers and challenges experienced by persons with disabilities?
- Not always sufficient funding, time, or resources to develop good tracking or measurement.
How to Move Forward
- What gets measured and how questions are asked matter.
- Understand what the impact is. And start before people are looking for a job.
- Establish best practices for measurements, like which benchmarks to use and segmenting by sector/disability.
- Develop partnerships with universities and community organizations.
- Research must always embed the perspective of and, ideally, be led by persons experiencing disability.
- All programs and services should include sufficient funding and time for evaluation and measurement.
Funding
Current Trends and Approaches
- Current funding models are not working.
- Too many hands in the same pots.
How to Move Forward
- Help to develop a new funding model that is informed by persons with disabilities and organizations.
- Increase collaborations with governments, service providers, and persons with disabilities.
- Explore more umbrella groups like avenueNB that have a shared funding model.
The more people and organizations who contribute to and forge towards employment equity and inclusion, the more established it will become.
Let your voice be heard today!
Complete the 2025 CASE Engagement Survey, which includes a section on these key issues in supported employment.