Bloomfield Trust awards my AFK grant to support disabled Londoners into work

We are delighted to announce that the Bloomfield Trust has awarded AFK a grant of £50,000 to support London’s unemployed disabled young people into work.

The latest figures from BASE show that only 6.6% of adults with learning disabilities aged 18-64 known to their local councils are in paid employment. AFK’s Life and Work Programme is helping to address these inequalities by supporting young Londoners with learning disabilities and autism to access paid work, training and volunteering opportunities.

The Bloomfield Trust will work closely with AFK over the next year to broker placements, internships and permanent roles for a cohort of young people in the Life and Work Programme. The Trust will also support employers and employees and evaluate the impact of the project.

Mandy and Martin Hellawell from the Bloomfield Trust told us: “We are delighted to be supporting AFK and we have been so impressed by the great work they are doing to help special talent enter the workplace. Organisations can greatly benefit at all kinds of levels from taking on people with learning disabilities. The impact on the prospective employees themselves of successfully obtaining employment can be life-changing. The work AFK does in marrying the ongoing needs and requirements of candidates and organisations is invaluable.”

Lyn Prodger, Corporate Partnerships Manager at AFK, said: “We want to say a big thank you to the Bloomfield Trust for choosing to support our trainees and for taking a real, hands-on interest in helping us to lower and overcome the barriers to work for disabled young people.”