90% Grant Funded Disability Equality & Neurodiversity Training
This week we will continue with our review of the Work & Access Grant which has been recently launched by the Department of Social Protection. This groundbreaking grant will now rebate between 80% - 90% of the total training cost of Disability Equality Training to a wide range of organisations based in the Republic of Ireland.
This forward thinking scheme is replacing the Reasonable Accommodation Fund and the Disability Awareness Support Scheme which had both been in operation for a number of years in Ireland. Work & Access aims to help reduce and remove barriers in the workplace that restrict employment choices for people with a disability, providing them with the same opportunity to succeed in work as their non-disabled peers.
In our last article we focused on the most significant change to this grant; widening the scope of organisations who can apply for this disability equality training grant. Previously, only private sector businesses were eligible to apply for government disability awareness training rebates. With the introduction of the Work & Access Grant, this has now completely changed to include all organisations outside of the public sector - charities, social enterprises, community based and voluntary organisations.
Now, any organisation in Ireland outside of the public sector can access the Work and Access Scheme and more specifically - the Disability Equality & Inclusion Grant.
The other significant change to the grant is that several other training programmes now also qualify for between 80% - 90% grant assistance.
Grant funding is now available for a number of additional programmes offered by Ability Focus. These programmes include:
• Supporting Neurodiversity in the Workplace
• Supporting Autism in the Workplace
• Disability Inclusive Recruitment Practices
• Reasonable Accommodation Training
• Disability Equality & Neurodiversity Training
• Customer Focused Disability Equality Training
• Management Disability Equality Training
The Work & Access Grant means that an employer who wants to have any of the listed programmes delivered to your staff can do so with a potential rebate of between 80% - 90% of the total cost of training.
By widening to scope of grant assistance to include a number of alternative training programmes, the Department of Social Protection is offering greater opportunity for organisations is the private, non-profit and voluntary sectors to create more disability inclusive workplaces.
With a requirement to pay between 10% - 20% of the total cost to train your staff, the question shouldn't be 'Should we have training delivered?'. It should be 'Why aren't we having training delivered?'
If you are considering Disability Equality Training for your organisation, please get in touch with Ability Focus by calling (01) 699 1150 or email info@abilityfocus.ie and we will be happy to discuss a programme to suit your disability training needs.
Ability Focus is the leading provider of disability equality training in Ireland. Our award-winning training programmes are CPD accredited, L&DI Endorsed and delivered by QQI qualified trainers with over twenty years' experience working in disability inclusion.
