Suffolk café founder calls on employers to ‘look beyond’ disability when recruiting
The 21 Young Hearts Cafe has just celebrated its first anniversary.
A Suffolk café which provides employment and training opportunities for adults with disabilities is calling on more businesses to consider what relatively small workplace adjustments could allow more people into work.
21 Young Hearts in Martlesham Heath was founded by Sharon and Stuart Hobbs after their son Kyle, who has Down syndrome, told them he wanted to work in a café and be part of his local community.
A year after opening its doors, the café has supported 16 trainees, employed four of them and helped two others move on to other opportunities, according to Sharon.
Sharon, the café's community director and co-founder, says its central message is that disability should not automatically be seen as a barrier to employment.
She said: "It's really important for us to be able to showcase that for the community, for businesses to see that actually these adults with need really want to be employed and they'll do as much as they can to be employed."
She added: "You don't need to put much in place to enable that either."
The café's own website describes its aim as providing adults with disabilities with a real working environment in which they can develop skills, confidence and experience to support future employment.
‘I just want Kyle to have the same opportunity’
The idea behind 21 Young Hearts began more than four years ago.
Sharon said that from Kyle's birth, she felt people could make assumptions about what someone with a disability would be able to achieve.
"I just want Kyle to have the same opportunity as everyone else," she said.
"He has an older brother, Callum, who's 27, and he aspires to do what Callum does.
"For me, it was just because he has Down syndrome, that should never be a barrier."
Sharon said trying to secure opportunities for her son had been "a real challenge" and claimed she had sometimes needed to rely on her knowledge of the law to secure support to which he was entitled.
She described Kyle as someone with a "wicked sense of humour" who wanted to be accepted and given the opportunity to work.
When his parents asked him what he wanted to do, his answer helped shape the project.
Sharon said: "We asked him what he wanted to do and he said he'd like to work in a cafe.
"He wants to work with other people, be part of the community."
She said the family then spent several years developing the idea before opening the café last year.
‘He has just flourished’
Sharon says she has seen a significant change in Kyle since he began working at 21 Young Hearts.
"For Kyle, seeing him grow at the moment and seeing him grow in the last year in the cafe has been amazing," she said.
"He has just flourished.
"He's much more confident, more able to speak to people, confident with doing food and preparing food, making drinks."
She said other trainees had also developed since first walking through the café's doors.
"They are very different people to when they walked through that door last year to what they are now," she said.
Kyle also works one day a week at Poppy's Pantry in Melton, according to Sharon, who said people there had noticed a "huge change" in him and were increasingly able to leave him to complete tasks independently.
She believes skills developed at 21 Young Hearts have helped him become more independent in other working environments.
Small adjustments in the workplace
Part of the café's work involves demonstrating how adjustments can be incorporated into an everyday workplace.
Sharon said the team deliberately avoids making its working environment significantly different from other cafés, so trainees can transfer their skills elsewhere.
Among the measures used are reducing unnecessary noise and using calmer colours within the café.
Different coloured cups are also used for different drinks, giving staff a visual way of remembering which cup should be used for each order.
Sharon said: "We've streamlined it a little bit, but actually you wouldn't know that there's many reasonable adjustments when you walk through the door because actually we want to make it achievable so that if they do move on from us, then there's not many hurdles for them to step over."
Under the Equality Act 2010, employers have a legal duty in certain circumstances to make reasonable adjustments for disabled workers and job applicants.
Call for businesses to be more open-minded
Sharon now wants to see more employers consider disabled applicants and work with organisations such as 21 Young Hearts to understand what support may be needed.
She believes stigma can discourage some people from disclosing a disability when applying for work and claimed some disabled applicants feel their condition can count against them.
"If they see they've got a disability, their CV gets put to the bottom of the pile," she said.
That is Sharon's assessment rather than a claim independently established by 21 Young Hearts, but she said she wanted employers to become more willing to consider what disabled applicants could contribute.
"For those with a disability, it's more of a challenge," she said.
"I'd love to see businesses embrace that more, which is what we're striving to do."
Sharon said the café was already linking up with businesses and hoped it could help both employers and trainees make the transition into work.
She said: "We need to be working with businesses to enable them to break down that challenge that they feel with employing someone with a disability."
For people moving into jobs elsewhere, Sharon said the café intends to support both the employee and the company in putting appropriate adjustments in place before stepping back.
‘Step by step’
21 Young Hearts does not restrict its support to one particular type of disability, according to Sharon, who highlighted the importance of recognising conditions which may not be immediately visible.
The café currently has a waiting list for training opportunities.
Sharon said people interested in joining are initially spoken to about what they want to achieve and whether the café can provide appropriate support.
"We work with them gradually," she said.
"We work with them step by step.
"So it's not something that I expect them to achieve straight away. That's not how we work."
She said the support offered is designed around each individual.
Plans for two more Suffolk cafés
Having recently marked its first birthday, 21 Young Hearts is already considering expansion.
Sharon said she would like to establish two further cafés - one in the west of Suffolk and another in the east -if sufficient funding can be secured.
"I'd like to see more opportunities for adults across the whole country really, but specifically over Suffolk," she said.
"I'd like to see businesses open up and be more open-minded to give opportunities to these adults because actually they have a lot to offer."
She said plans for the café's future were already being considered, adding: "I'd like to have two more, one over the west of the county and one over the east."
Sharon said expansion would depend on securing additional funding.
She also claimed a number of organisations providing services locally had recently closed, contributing to what she described as a "huge gap and huge need" for support.
"If we can get some more funding in and we can access some more pots of money to support us to do that, then that's what our future aim would be," she said.
‘Take away the labels’
For Sharon, the wider ambition goes beyond the café itself.
She wants perceptions of disabled people to change and for individuals to be seen for what they can do rather than primarily through a diagnosis.
"We're all unique in our own way," she said.
"Just when you're speaking to someone, don't be afraid to speak to them.
"They may have a disability, but they're just a person underneath.
"So treat them as equally as you would anyone else."