Inclusive Employment

People with an intellectual or developmental disability want to work, yet more than 77% of working aged New Brunswick adults with an intellectual or developmental disability are unemployed. Our economy needs everyone to contribute to our provincial labour force. Evidence shows that, with the right support and approaches, people with a disability can become long-term, valued employees.

In 2019, the Department of Social Development adopted new standards for the Employment and Support Services Program (ESSP) to modernize the services being delivered by 38 day-program agencies across the province.

Many of these agencies have operated in a group setting which often meant that people were not involved in paid employment. A significant amount of work remains to implement the new ESSP standards, including a new way to fund agencies to deliver supported employment services in their community.

What we are advocating for:

• Fully implement the 2019 ESSP service standards, which require agencies to focus on paid employment as a key priority for working-aged people receiving services.
• Prioritize developing strong agency leadership in shifting to supported employment services.
• Develop and implement a new formula to fund ESSP agencies to strengthen their capacity to support people to work. The current model is based on group and centre-based services with people occupying seats in programs. This makes it difficult to provide individualized employment supports and services and limits real pay for real work.