Why should your business work with the Mencap Training Academy?
A company's workforce should be reflective of a diverse society. Young people with a
learning disability
A learning disability is to do with the way someone's brain works. It makes it harder for someone to learn, understand or do things.
and/or
autism
Autism is a disability. Autistic people find it difficult to understand what other people think and feel. They also find it difficult to tell people what they think and feel. Everyone with autism is different.
who the Mencap Training Academy work with deserve to be given a chance. With the right support, they achieve incredible things and bring a wide range of benefits to employers:
How can employers work with the Mencap Training Academy?
There are lots of ways employers can work with us to support young people with a learning disability and/or autism into work.
Work experience placements
We are always looking to work with employers who can offer
work experience
Work
experience
Experience is when you have learned or tried something before.
is when you try out a job to help you learn new skills.
to our learners. Watch our video to hear from some of our current employer partners about their highly rewarding experiences of providing work experience to our learners.
What do we ask for from employers who offer work experience?
Learners on our
supported internships
A work placement for young people with additional needs, where they get support from a job coach.
are required to complete a minimum of 420 hours of work experience between September and July. If you do not think your business can provide this many hours, then you may wish to consider working with learners on our pre-internships who complete 45 hours of work experience, usually between March and July.
Work experience placements will need to be in areas that learners on our courses can travel to in London, Birmingham, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire or Worcestershire.
We recognise that not every employer we work with will have vacancies, but where possible, we hope our partners can offer paid job offers to learners at the end of their work experience placements where they have performed well in the role. We encourage our employer partners to think of work experience placements as a recruitment process.
To ensure good communication and partnership working throughout work experience placements, we ask that representatives from employers attend regular reviews with our employer engagement officers and skills coaches. Where possible, we
advocate
An advocate is a person who can help you have your say. An advocate can speak up for you if you find it hard.
for the introduction of reasonable adjustments for learners that need them like later start times, assistive technology (we can support with Access to Work claims) and job carving - where roles are adjusted to suit specific skill sets.
How else can employers support us?
Besides offering work experience, employers can also support our learners through:
- Opportunities to visit work sites
- Opportunities to hear from employees about their work and sector
- Support to prepare for interviews.
Organisations
Organisations are groups like companies and businesses.
can also raise funds for Mencap. Visit our corporate partnerships page to learn more or contact corporate fundraising.
"We have hired people [following supported internship work experience placements] who we would not have otherwise identified through our usual recruitment processes. Mencap's skill coaches ensure the right level of support is provider to the learner and employer and every one of our colleagues involved has grown and learnt from the partnership."
Training
Manager
A manager is a boss at work. They tell you what you need to do and give you support if you need it.
, Wincanton.
How we support employers
In-work support
Our skills coaches attend work experience placements with our learners to help them understand and complete workplace tasks. They also work with employers' teams to help them understand how best to support and communicate with learners and to make reasonable adjustments where required.
Learning Disability Awareness training
Employers who offer work experience placements to our learners benefit from our Learning Disability Awareness (LDA) training sessions, co-delivered by a trainer with lived experience of learning disability. LDA covers topics like what is a learning disability, reasonable adjustments and communication.
Useful resources for employers
We have created a range of helpful fact sheets for employers on a number of topics related to supporting people with a learning disability to access the workplace.
Select from the buttons on the right to find out more.
Could your business be one of our employer partners of 2025?
We held our first employer partner of the year awards ceremony in 2024 and had a great time celebrating all the amazing efforts and achievements of our wonderful employer partners. We're looking forward to similarly recognising and promoting employers' fantastic work around inclusion in future years.
Get in touch
To discuss working with us through offering work experience placements and/or other employer engagement activities, please email us and a member of our employer engagement teams will be in touch.
Alternatively, if you would like to find out how your business could support Mencap through fundraising, please email our Corporate Fundraising team.
