Page 12 - Community Living Issue 31-3

living a life: work in the community

a local college, it meant a move to a day
centre offering a combination of social
and craft activities. And, 20 years later,
they would still be there.
However, the late 1980s proved to a
turning point and a combination of ideas,
optimism and, crucially, new funding
streams enabled us to establish a charitable
limited company with funding from the
European Social Fund and Edinburgh
Council. This permitted us to acquire a
beautifully refurbished engine shed built in
the 1830s. All this was achieved in less than
two years. Talk about being fast tracked.
In many ways, the project took a
practical, commonsense approach. It was
based on the assumption that individuals
with learning disabilities had the right to
the same experiences and challenges after
farewell, engine shed school as other young people, and had
similar needs and aspirations, including
access to further education and training in a
The Engine Shed was a social enterprise that trained young setting that matched their way of learning.
The engine Shed offered a three-year
people, helped them into work and broke down barriers. Its vocational programme. Trainees were
former chief executive marian macdonald tells its story based in one of our social business work
areas which included a cafe, bakery, food
processing unit and conference centre. In
he engine shed was a thriving social The project closed in 2015 when many ways, we operated an apprenticeship
business that provided training for Edinburgh changed how it tendered for model where, under guidance, young
Tyoung people with learning supported employment. I am writing this people trained, worked, learnt and
disabilities in a working environment to from the perspective of looking back over developed a range of vocational and
help them move into paid employment. the past 30 years. personal skills to fit them for adult life.
Over the years, what had started as a My role in developing and leading this
training project evolved into a successful organisation began in the spring of 1988. Out of the comfort zone
business with networks stretching far and Eighteen months before, I had been a The trainees worked in an environment
wide, within Edinburgh and throughout social worker based at local charity where doing a job well, being part of a
Scotland. Garvald Edinburgh. Here, I worked behind team, making choices and decisions,
It was set up in 1989 as an innovative the scenes as part of a steering group that having rights and responsibilities,
training project, founded on the idea that explored ideas around setting up a developing their social life, achieving what
work was an important way for people vocational training resource. they had set out to do, dealing with
with learning disabilities to become as These were exciting, pioneering times. situations that sometimes didn’t work out
independent as possible and integrate Organisations that worked with and as expected and occasionally feeling out
into the wider community. advocated for people with learning of their comfort zone were all part and
disabilities were beginning to challenge why parcel of everyday life.
they were excluded from the workplace It certainly helped towards building up
– along with those they were working with. trainees’ resilience to deal with whatever
We also explored what resources to life threw at them. It was a world away
support people to make a successful move from the more protective model of
into paid jobs should look like. Until then, services they had been used to.
when young people left school and/or An important aspect of our programme
completed a one-year extension course at was that it offered the chance for an
individual to learn in a very public, highly
visible work setting and, with this as their
foundation, to take one step at a time
towards meeting their future goals.
The structure involved a six-month
settling in period to build up a mutual
understanding of their skills and future
training needs, followed by an appraisal
review. Parents and professionals were
not automatically invited – something our
first cohort of trainees found strange.
At this point in their training, a range of

12 Vol 31 No 3 | Spring 2018 community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk