Everyone received mentoring in relation to personal development goals. During the practical process, it was possible to point out behaviors and/or limitations that were relevant to work with and that would cause problems in an ordinary workplace without expertise in mentoring and developmental disorders and which would require a lot of resources and probably have an impact on their employment relationship. As well, point out and work on areas where they can improve and be able to contribute more in a workplace through training.
Peer-to-peer support worked well internally in the project team, despite very different challenges, functional levels and level of experience. It contributed positively to the development of both the most and least experienced/resourceful peer. Who respectively received extra support and care on the one hand, and increased responsibility and thereby the opportunity to grow on the other. Mentors gave clear information about the division of roles and the alignment of expectations by an experienced mentor. Which we believe is crucial for successful peer-to-peer collaboration between people at different levels.
The practical testing of the preparatory process showed that the preparatory visits and contacts to the company NaboFarm worked well in minimizing the excess stress that people with developmental disorders such as ASD and/or ADHD experience when starting at a new workplace. Normally you would expect people with developmental disorders to perform significantly worse in a new setting. Often, internships and work tests are almost doomed from the start, because current practice correlates very poorly with many typical aspects of ASD and ADHD diagnoses. This was not the case during the pilot-testing, proving the importance of preparing them properly for the tasks in order to unlock their potential.
The visits to and contact with Nabo Farm prior to solving tasks in their production, as well as thorough practice of workflows via guides, made it possible to reduce the stress and anxiety response effectively. The interns were able to perform at the same level in the private company Nabo Farm as at the home base where they had practiced the workflows. The interns themselves and the mentors assessed that the expected anxiety about the challenge of going out and performing at Nabo Farm, was instead replaced by excitement and expectation to have to work with harvesting at Nabo Farm. The pilot testing a valuable and educational experiences for both interns and Nabo Farm, and the interns performed at a level where it is possible to involve them in the production at Nabo Farm, i.e. hire them to perform tasks.
The project group’s expectations for the degree to which task solving was possible were exceeded in practice. In fact, the pilot testing went so well that Nabo Farm wanted to hire a citizen, which unfortunately was not possible at the time due to ongoing evaluation within the social services.
The private company Nabo Farm learned a lot from the practical process and now has a clear picture of what inclusion of people with developmental disabilities entails in practice. Prior to the pilot test, several employees of Nabo Farm had participated in Erasmus+ seminars and workshops and used the developed educational videos, which they report had given them a useful basic understanding.
Division and specification of tasks provided insight into task types within NaboFarm’s own organization. The divisions based on expected profiles have proven to be relevant, where 3 general categories are 1) farming tasks in-house based on specific instructions, 2) several different types of farming tasks and finding information about the task to be performed and 3) transport of sprouts to external locations, with customer contact and technical servicing of plants + simple cleaning tasks.
Guides turned out to have prepared citizens for the tasks of NF. The practice of using guides and using guides to solve tasks more independently and complete a task without errors also showed that citizens have successfully learned to use this tool. The hope is that they can learn other new tasks and continuously adapt to changes in procedures.
The real-life test of the resources and the concept developed by the inter-disciplinary project group proved to be effective in preparing and including people with developmental disorder for the ordinary labor market. This gives reason to believe that further development of this concept and adjustment to local conditions in European countries is a relevant contribution to solving the problem with inclusion of NEETs in the labor market. The real-life testing clearly showed positive effects of a go-between process , as was the case in teamOP, where the citizen received the necessary targeted training before they had to perform at the company. As well as alignment of expectations and preparation of the company.
In the future, it is necessary to work with the breadth of guides, develop more material on environmental aspects, to work with each country’s employment system and map which barriers and opportunities lie locally, to move even more into NaboFarm and gain experience with how employment conditions in NaboFarm develop over longer time periods and possibly develop a model for support and/or follow up for the company, and to test the cooperation with numerus other companies.
