My Working Day:Karl Heneghan of Inclusive Recruitment, loves helping people find the right job.
I work with Inclusive Recruitment, an employment agency specialising in the placement of people with disabilities.We support about 260 people who work in a variety of fields such as catering, retail, libraries and manufacturing.
Our service is a division of St Michael's House, which was set up by parents of children with special needs. The Inclusive Recruitment service started in 2001 and I've been here since April 2006. My role is to match the skills and preferences of our service users who are seeking jobs with employers who are recruiting staff. Once a client has been hired I provide ongoing support to them and their employer.
Sometimes I begin my day in the office, other days I begin by visiting one of our service users in their place of work to see how they're getting on.
We operate like any other employment agency in that we have a list of employers and a list of people seeking work, except that we are a free service. The biggest challenge I face is trying to find suitable jobs for the 100 or so people on our waiting list.
I have found that in a lot of places there is a demand for short- hour part-time jobs and a company may think that nobody would be interested in working such few hours. But many of our service users are happy to work short hours and we try to offer companies a person who meets their needs in these cases.
Some employers can be a bit anxious when it comes to employing somebody with an intellectual disability but some of our bigger employers now act as a reference for us, which is a big help to the service.
Many employers now realise it is important to include everyone in their practices and this makes finding jobs easier.
When one of our clients starts a job we provide them with a job coach who will assist them in getting settled into the duties involved in their new role. In most cases people settle in quickly and both employee and employer are happy.
I enjoy my job's challenge immensely. There's great variety in the job and I've met people from all walks of life.
The job has given me a great insight into many different types of work and I particularly enjoy dealing with our service users. They all have a unique take on life, different goals and huge personalities.