More about Getting A Life
How the project raises aspirations for young people with severe learning disabilities, challenges the systems around them, and builds a clear route to paid work.
Why the project exists
Getting A Life starts from a simple belief: young people with severe learning disabilities should be expected to work, to earn, and to make choices about their own futures. Too often, their education and support are shaped by low expectations, and employment is treated as something that might happen someday rather than something to plan for now.
The project works to change that picture. It focuses on raising aspirations among young people, their families, and the professionals who support them, so that every conversation starts from what a person wants to do next rather than what they are assumed to be unable to do.
Raising aspirations
Aspirations grow through experience. The project encourages young people to try real tasks, visit workplaces, and meet people who already work in roles they find interesting. Each experience is recorded and discussed, so that preferences become clearer and goals become specific.
Families are part of this work. Parents and carers are invited to share their own hopes and worries, and to see examples of what is possible when support is planned around a person's strengths.
Changing the system
A clear path to paid employment depends on more than individual effort. Schools, colleges, local services and employers each hold part of the answer. The project looks closely at where information stops moving, where referrals stall, and where a young person's plan is lost between one service and the next.
Where those gaps are found, the project works to close them by sharing practical guidance, proposing clearer hand-offs, and keeping the young person at the centre of every decision.
A route to paid employment
The path is built in stages. Each stage has a purpose, a set of people responsible for it, and a clear point at which the young person and their family can see what comes next.
Stage one
Discovering interests
Structured taster activities help the young person explore what they enjoy and what they find motivating.
Stage two
Building skills
Practice in real settings develops routines, communication and confidence, with support tailored to each person.
Stage three
Work experience
Placements with employers give the young person a chance to contribute and to learn what working life involves.
Stage four
Paid employment
Supported job matching and ongoing check-ins help the transition into paid work hold over time.
Moments from the project
Each photograph reflects part of the everyday work of building confidence, learning new skills and making real connections with the world of work.
The project is still growing, and every conversation with young people, families and professionals shapes what comes next. Get in touch with the Getting A Life team