The IDES study is funded by an ARC linkage grant which aims to enable university researchers to develop long-term strategic research alliances with industry, government and not-for-profit organisations to undertake research that is relevant and applicable. Partner organisations have all made a variety of commitments (both financial and in-kind) to support the IDES project. There are 13 employment service providers across Australia that have offered to help the study with some of the setting up components (for example, what sorts of questions would be good to ask people) and with recruiting participants. People will be told about the study when they first approach their employment service provider. If they want to be involved, we will then contact them to complete a questionnaire either online or over the phone.
The 13 employment service providers are spread all across Australia. They are located in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.They are located in cities (inner and outer suburbs) and also rurally. Currently, all service providers are predominately running Disability Employment Services (DES) but some are also running mainstream services. We hope to recruit from both of these streams to make sure we have a representative sample of people with disability seeking employment.