Browsing by Subject "työvalmennus"

The topic of this thesis is the employment of people with disabilities and job coaching. The aim of this study is to examine the methods by which job coaching Virtaamo promotes the employment of people with disabilities and to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by disabled individuals in the working life. The challenges and opportunities of working life are discussed in relation to the working-life citizenship of people with disabilities. The starting point of this thesis is disability studies, and this thesis ex-amines the social structures related to employment. The research material mainly consists of six semi-structured interviews with a total of seven interviewees. The interviewees were clients, job coaches, and partners of job coaching Virtaamo. Additionally, I utilized documents obtained from Virtaamo (such as customer feedback survey responses). I conducted my analysis using theory-guided content analysis, guided by observations from previous research on barriers and incentives to working-life citizenship. According to the data, Virtaamo provides its clients with comprehensive support, and overall satisfaction with the services is high. The most significant support measures provided by Virtaamo were emotional support, workplace visits, and consideration of clients' preferences. Workplace visits were met with conflicting attitudes. The cornerstone of Virtaamo's operation is cooperation with companies, through which Virtaamo creates job opportunities for its clients. According to job coaches, the nature of the job has changed, and nowadays clients face increasingly greater challenges in various areas of life. The employment opportunities for people with disabilities appeared to be very limited, and doing unpaid work is both a threat and an opportunity for working-life citizenship. Attitudes of employers and workplace communities act as barriers to and special markers of working-life citizenship for people with disabilities. Pay subsidy, job coaching services, and successful cooperation with companies serve as enablers of working-life citizenship for people with disabilities. Working-life citizenship for people with disabilities is possible, but it is difficult to achieve and marked as special.