Grant: Healthy and Productive Work - Partnership Grants

Maintaining a healthy workforce is a priority for employers, workers and policy makers. Of the 1.5 million working age Canadians with a disability, 411,000 are unemployed but want to work and their disabilities do not prevent them from doing so [1-2]. There are nearly 200,000 Canadian young adults aged 15-25 who have a disability, representing a substantial untapped pool of capable future workers [1]. Despite the strong business case for hiring people with disabilities, their employment rates are consistently half or less compared to people without disabilities [3-4]. Workplace accommodations can optimize disabled workers' labour participation [5-6]. However, despite the benefits of accommodations, employers struggle with how to accommodate employees with disabilities and the types of accommodations that will facilitate employment [7]. Although many people with a disability could benefit from accommodations, only a small proportion of workers disclose their need for accommodations due to fear of discrimination or job loss [8-9]. Little is known about the experiences of disability disclosure and workplace accommodations among young people who attempt to enter and remain in the workforce. It is critical to identify effective disclosure strategies and workplace accommodation processes because they can improve quality of life and job performance [10].This grant is linked to the "Insight" and "Connection" programs and is designed to connect academics and knowledge user partners to increase the multi-directional flow of knowledge. This five-year CIHR-SSHRC partnership grant in "Healthy and Productive Work" will allow us to develop an interdisciplinary partnership and co-create knowledge to develop, implement and evaluate the following evidence-informed, gender-responsive solutions to enhance healthy and inclusive labour force participation of youth with disabilities. OBJECTIVES: (1) to develop evidence on disability disclosure and workplace accommodations that help youth with disabilities to enter, remain healthy and productive in the workplace; (2) to implement and evaluate evidence-informed, gender-responsive solutions for effective implementation, evaluation, and scaling up of interventions (i.e., toolkits, simulations, mentoring) that enable productive work among youth with disabilities; (3) to build capacity for measuring and demonstrating the broader health and socio-economic impacts of these interventions; (4) to expand the evidence base and research capacity regarding the integration of sex and gender-based analysis with respect to healthy and productive work; and (5) to enhance inter-disciplinary partnerships through the Inclusive Youth Employment Research Coalition through inter-disciplinary collaborations between researchers and knowledge users while building capacityof the next generation of researchers. We will develop a cross-sector partnership of academics, employers, youth with disabilities and knowledge users to understand how best to provide workplace accommodations. To enable knowledge generation through engagement with these partners, the partnership also includes leading Canadian academics with expertise in child disabilities, workplace accommodations, gender, diversity, and human resources management. These individuals are committed to advancing our understanding of workplace accommodations and improving employment opportunities for young people with disabilities. KEY DELIVERABLES: The project deliverables involve the following: three toolkits; (2) interactive bi-monthly webinars and 5 workshops; (3) interactive project website; (4) infographics, policy briefs, videos; (5) publications / presentations; and (6) development of an Inclusive Youth Employment Research Coalition.