UVM Seminar on labor inclusion and disability
The seminar "Labor inclusion for people with disabilities: perspectives and challenges", organized by the School of Legal and Social Sciences and the Inclusion Unit of Viña del Mar University, had the purpose of addressing the challenges of the Law of Labor inclusion for people with disabilities, from different perspectives.
Among the guests was the presence of Claudio Gregoire, psychologist and master in human resources and support technologies, and founder of Mundo Iglo, employment portal for people with disabilities and a meeting space for businesses and education that address the inclution. The lawyer Alejandra Fernández, Hernán Núñez, executive secretary of the Disability Commission of the Sofofa, and Marcela Godoy, head of the Inclusion Unit of the UVM, who narrated the experience of this House of Studies in the labor inclusion program allowed the hiring of young people in down syndrome as administrative support.
During the seminar the Chilean Labor Inclusion Law was addressed, which will take effect at the end of 2017, which establishes that public and private companies, which have 100 or more workers, must reserve 1% of their jobs for people in disability situation. Another interesting aspect is that this law intruded in the Internal Regulation that each company must have, "in order to safeguard and ensure that the work is carried out in the most appropriate and effective manner," explained the lawyer Alejandra Fernandez.
Another important aspect that was raised in the Seminar is the relationship between education and work. In Chile, 20% of people over 18 years of age are disabled. However, of that total, only 39.3% have a job. To this, as Hernán Núñez points out, 95% of people with disabilities work as employees or workers and this has a basis: according to the latest Casen survey, 50% of people with disabilities do not They have finished secondary education," he says
In turn, the executive secretary of the Disability Commission of the Sofofa, presented the Business Strategy for the Labor Inclusion of People with Disabilities, which includes several focuses of intervention, among them, to identify obstacles or barriers to employment; provide the business with information and tools that facilitate the decision to hire; strengthen a labor intermediation device (labor inclusion committee) and constitute a network of inclusive companies.
Since 2013, Viña del Mar University has hired five young people with Down syndrome as administrative support. However, as of 2016, the UVM Inclusion Unit began a systematic accompaniment work, with the advice of AVANZA Socio-labor Inclusion, in the improvement of personal autonomy and with the aim of enhancing participation in extra-work aspects.
At the beginning of 2017, the Inclusion Unit in conjunction with HR undertook a survey of the organization's needs in different areas, and based on that diagnosis, some improvements were proposed to strengthen the employment relationship. "Redefine functions and roles, based on the need of the different units; establish supports, adaptations and routines; and train and sensitize the work teams, depending on the support needs ", were some of the measures adopted, explained Constanza López, Communications Director of AVANZA Socio-labor Inclusion.
"Each one of them has been personally supported by the AVANZA team, their functions have been ordered in a stable routine, in order to promote their work autonomy. This mainly because knowing the functions that the organization expects from me as a worker, will allow me to fulfill those expectations, which are also formalized through a work contract, "López continued.
In addition, other means of support have been provided, mainly of a visual nature, to receive and remember instructions, remember functions, record observations and report needs to the teams or headquarters; what facilitates the successful performance and decreases the probabilities of error in each worker.
Finally, and as part of the follow-up, at the same time each worker attends once a week to AVANZA's dependencies to receive support in labor or extra-labor issues based on their own demand. Supports are coordinated with each relative of reference and frequent communication is maintained both with the unit of inclusion and with each direct leadership.
