Sheltered workshops: new approach needed

Hungarian EPP Group MEP, Ádám Kósa, along with fellow German MEP, Dieter-Lebrecht Koch and the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disabilities (EASPD) held a conference today in the European Parliament on the evolving concept of sheltered workshops in the EU. The aim of the event was to explore whether the sheltered workshops model complies with the objectives of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) - which is centred on building a more inclusive society - and to discuss the way forward, including providing recommendations to the EU institutions.

What are sheltered workshops?

Sheltered workshops offer a working environment adapted to people with disabilities and are supported by the state. Developed in the 1960s to support people with disabilities who couldn’t find a job in the open labour market, they have been further developed to support people in learning professional skills and enhancing personal development. Today this model of work is currently spread all over Europe, although with different approaches and definitions.

"As the presentations highlighted very well, sheltered workshops give working opportunities to persons with disabilities - people with multiple disabilities in particular - which meet their specific needs. They also offer real possibilities for vocational rehabilitation, training and ad-hoc support in all fields of life. The EU should help implement the rights of persons with disabilities by promoting the development of a wider range of services, ensuring that every person receives the support they need to enjoy the right to work and gainful employment. More focused developments are needed for the sector in the light of the UN CRPD," underlined Kósa at the end of the conference.

Mr Koch said: "Of course, the inclusion of people with disabilities in the mainstream labour market is the most important target. But if due to the nature or severity of some disabilities it is not, or not yet, possible for persons to enter or to re-enter the regular labour market, sheltered workshops provide excellent opportunities to offer participation in working life within the framework of vocational rehabilitation. As we've seen, this concept works very well in my own and in some other EU countries; so I hope that this example of good practice will make waves across the EU and abroad".

What is the situation today?

"Today, about 3 million people with disabilities are working in sheltered employment in Europe. An ill-considered implementation of labour law rights might lead to unemployment, poverty and more social exclusion for person with disabilities," outlined Franz Wolfmayr from EASPD. The solution, he says, is without any doubt a transition using "services tailored to the individual needs of persons with disabilities".

"For years, about 190 000 people with severe disabilities have been registered as unemployed in Germany," adds Stephan Hirsch, Secretary General at BAG: WfbM, the Federal Association of workshops for adapted work in Germany. Mr. Hirsch outlined the importance of sheltered opportunities to people who "do not get employed or make the transition into employment in the first place and never cross the threshold of a workshop for adapted work either".

László Csizmadia, president of ETA, the largest Hungarian NGO Alliance on employing mentally disabled people, emphasised that: "Today in Hungary, any company can apply for state support for employing people with disabilities, if they meet certain conditions in terms of quality and rehabilitation-related outputs. A personalised rehabilitation card has been newly introduced for people with disabilities, with legally fixed financial benefits for their employers - in contrast to the long standing practice seen before 2011".

Thierry Nouvel, General Director of the France-based NGO Unapei, highlighted the importance of funding in this area: "The Unapei association supports the further development of programmes aimed at supporting sheltered workshops that ensure the transition of people with disabilities to the open labour market, as the rate of transition, which is only 3% at the moment, needs to improve. Furthermore, sustainable funding should be made available for programmes to prepare and support mobility".