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University of Victoria

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Employment Strategy for Youth with Disabilities

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EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY FOR YOUTH WITH DISABILITIES (ESYD)

WELCOME!

We are a small team at CanAssist at the University of Victoria working to improve employment service access for youth with disabilities. With provincial funding, we are working with a BC-wide network of stakeholders to develop the BC Employment Strategy for Youth with Disabilities (ESYD). 

WHY ARE WE BUILDING THE ESYD?

It’s no secret that youth with disabilities face barriers to finding and keeping jobs. But they also struggle to access appropriate employment support. This is because the availability and accessibility of employment programs vary from place to place. Different programs are available in different communities across BC. And each of these programs have different rules for who they can serve based on how they are funded. When programs have multiple funding sources – which is common – the support they provide and the clients they serve are very specific to the unique combination of funding they are working with. In many cases, youth with disabilities are ineligible for these services. There are also many youths with disabilities in BC who are not aware that employment support is an option.

To complicate things further, most programs in BC are designed for adults, who have different needs than youth. It is very difficult for youth with disabilities to get the help they need to move through the employment journey.

THE STRATEGY

By creating a BC-wide strategy, we hope to make it easier for youth with disabilities to access and navigate employment support. The Strategy will:

  • provide the framework for a consistent approach to supporting youth-specific needs, and
  • highlight best practices to supporting youth with disabilities in their employment

WANT TO STAY CONNECT TO OUR WORK?

Follow us at @esydbritishcolumbia on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook or @esydbc on Twitter.

For general inquiries or project information, please email our Project Assistant at youthstratassistant@uvic.ca. 

You can also email youthstratcontent@uvic.ca to be added to our monthly project update newsletter!