Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether his Department is taking steps to provide training to (a) work coaches and (b) disability employment advisors on the barriers to employment faced by disabled people.

The DWP Work Coaches undergo comprehensive learning to support customers with additional or complex needs, particularly disabilities, and they continue to build on this in the workplace through accessing point of need learning products.

The learning provides Work Coaches with the knowledge and skills to enable them to:

• Treat each claimant as an individual;
• To be aware and support claimants with their disability and the impacts of their condition;
• Help overcome any barriers; and
• Support them into moving closer to the working environment.

Learning includes a number of training courses that cover disability awareness:

• Becoming Disability Confident - seeing past the misconceptions that can exist around disabilities and being able to have open, honest and well-informed conversations with disabled colleagues in order to create, or contribute to, an inclusive work environment in which disabled colleagues can thrive;
• Helping Customers who need additional support – working with customers who need additional support, either because they are in a vulnerable situation, are disabled, or suggest suicide or self-harm, requires additional customer service skills; and
• Vulnerable Customers and Complex Needs.

Within the DWP, the Disability Employment Advisor (DEA) role are expected to have completed the Work Coach Learning Journey prior to commencing specific learning for the DEA role, which provides them with further skills to support specific needs, enabling claimants to progress towards employment and making opportunities more accessible.