DurhamEnable is a Supported Employment service funded by the UK Government and provided by Durham County Council.
Our service started in 2021 with the goal of helping County Durham residents aged 18 or over who have a disability, autism, mental health needs, or other long term health conditions and have faced barriers getting into work.
We are committed to supporting disabled people to gain the skills and confidence to succeed in long term employment, and beyond.
We use a ‘place, train and maintain’ model, following to the five stages of Supported Employment. The model uses a partnership strategy to enable people with disabilities to achieve sustainable long term employment, and businesses to employ valuable workers. This five stage model has at its heart the idea that anyone can be in paid employment if they want to do it and sufficient support is provided. The five stages are;
- customer engagement
- vocational profiling
- employer engagement
- job matching
- in-work support and career development
We provide flexible and continuous support, which is designed to meet all anticipated needs. The service also supports job retention, as we use schemes such as Access to Work to provide ongoing in-work support and career development.
We were assessed by the British Association for Supported Employment (BASE), achieving an Excellent accreditation status, showing that we followed the model well. We are highly regarded for our services, products and processes when delivering the model and have been seen as a market leader in the North East for our Supported Employment practice. We are highly commended for our work with employers and ability to job match as high levels of people retain employment once achieving work.
