Starting in January 2023, Autism Spectrum Pathways (ASP) will run until January 2025. This two-year Erasmus + project focuses on increasing employment opportunities for autistic people.
Currently, it is estimated that around seven million people in Europe are on the autism spectrum. Yet, the autistic community remains greatly underemployed: while the overall employment rate in the EU currently sits at 73%, estimates show that for the autistic population, this figure can drop to below 10%. This project will provide training to autistic jobseekers, VET schools and employers to increase the employment opportunities of individuals on the autism spectrum and improve the accessibility and inclusion of autistic employees in the workplace.
ASP’s main open-source outputs and objectives will be:
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- A state-of-the-art research report with a comprehensive analysis of the requirements and challenges to increase the employment opportunities for autistic candidates.
- Expert-reviewed employment guides for autistic jobseekers, VET schools and employers.
- A freely accessible online interactive training platform with learning modules on employment for autistic jobseekers, VET teachers/trainers and employers.
- The first European-wide digital map of autism associations and companies already employing or who are willing to employ autistic candidates.
- A European network of autism associations, trainers, VET schools and employers.
- A project website with the above-mentioned outputs as well as a YouTube page featuring the voices of the project’s autistic jobseekers and their pathways to employment.
Through these objectives, the ASP project will promote diversity and inclusion in employment while also increasing the potential to boost the EU’s labour force and economy.
Five partner organisations have come together for Autism Spectrum Pathways: PAGS (Belgium) – project coordinator – Help Autism Association (Romania), Synapsis Foundation (Poland), Autism-Europe (Belgium) and Babel Idiomas (Spain).
More about the Erasmus+ Programme
Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. It has an estimated budget of €26.2 billion. The 2021-2027 programme places a strong focus on social inclusion, the green and digital transitions, and promoting young people’s participation in democratic life.