Ashworth, Maria Catriona;
(2024)
Tracking and Evaluating a Supported Employment Internship Programme for Autistic Adults without a Learning Disability.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
There is an established employment gap for autistic people. Many autistic individuals express a desire to work but have low employment rates compared to people with and without other disabilities. (Un)employment has a wide influence on autistic people’s financial security and well-being. Poor support during the transition from education to adulthood is a key barrier to employment; it limits the opportunities for autistic young people to gain crucial experience and skills for future employment. Supported employment initiatives with work experience (e.g., internships) can improve autistic people’s employment outcomes. However, few supported employment initiatives have been evaluated. Of those that have been evaluated, many are not accessible to autistic people without a learning disability who are not in education. This thesis presents the first evaluation of a UK-based supported employment initiative for autistic people aged 18 years and older without a learning disability, Employ Autism. The first chapter provides a general introduction to autism and an overview of the literature pertaining to employment outcomes, barriers, and support. The second chapter provides additional background on the context of the research setting, the Employ Autism initiative, and the rationale for the design of the evaluation. Across the subsequent three chapters, I present my mixed methods approach to evaluate Employ Autism. Chapter 3 (Study 1) evaluates the effectiveness of Employ Autism’s autism training on employers’ autism knowledge and commitment to inclusion in the workplace. Chapter 4 (Study 2) presents the thematic analysis used to explore the interns’, employers’, and parents’ qualitative experiences of Employ Autism. Chapter 5 (Study 3) examined how the interns’ employment and wider outcomes (e.g., quality of life) changed up to two years post-internship. Finally, Chapter 6 provides a discussion of the main findings from my doctoral research, including recommendations for practice and future research.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Tracking and Evaluating a Supported Employment Internship Programme for Autistic Adults without a Learning Disability |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Psychology and Human Development |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198588 |
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