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Views of independence and readiness for employment amongst young people with visual impairment in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2014

Graeme Douglas  and
Rachel Hewett
Graeme Douglas*
Affiliation:
Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR), Department of Disability Inclusion and Special Needs (DISN), School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TTUK
Rachel Hewett
Affiliation:
Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research (VICTAR), Department of Disability Inclusion and Special Needs (DISN), School of Education, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TTUK
*
Address correspondence to: Graeme Douglas E-mail: g.g.a.douglas@bham.ac.uk/r.g.hewett@bham.ac.uk Tel: 0121 414 6736/ 0121 414 4394 Fax: 0121 414 4865
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Abstract

There is concern that young people with visual impairment do not leave school adequately prepared for the workplace. Seventy young people from the UK with visual impairment (aged 16–19) took part in semi-structured interviews exploring how they define independence and how they predict they would deal with employment-based problems. Two overarching themes emerged: (1) how active/passive the young people felt they should be in solving problems (active–passive dimension), and (2) to whom (themselves or others) the young person attributed the responsibility for problems and solutions (internaliser–externaliser dimension). The results provide evidence of the importance of teaching young people disability-specific skills at school (an ‘expanded core curriculum’) which aims to maximise young people's independence while giving them a clear understanding of the accommodations to which they are entitled.

Keywords

visual impairmentindependenceschooltransitionemployment
Type
Articles
Information
The Australian Journal of Rehabilitation Counselling , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 81 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014 

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