British Association for Supported Employment

The UK's leading voice for supported employment.

Enabling disabled, neurodivergent, and disadvantaged people to access good quality careers and flourish through practical guidance, training, and national leadership.

British Association for Supported Employment

The UK's leading voice for supported employment.

Enabling disabled, neurodivergent, and disadvantaged people to access good quality careers and flourish through practical guidance, training, and national leadership.

National Community 15k+ People trained

Membership 350+ Member organisations

OUR WORK

Driving quality and inclusion.

BASE provides a national voice for providers, offering guidance, training, and a rigorous quality framework to help embed best practice across supported employment services.

Standards & quality

Quality Assurance

The Supported Employment Quality Framework (SEQF) Model Fidelity tool helps agencies embed robust, evidence-based practice with confidence. External assessment is also available.

Learn about SEQF External assessment

Training & support

Training & Consultancy

From Job Coach Level 3 Certificates to Systematic Instruction, BASE offers accredited programmes and specialist consultancy for supported employment professionals.

View training courses Accredited learning

Community & access

BASE Membership

Join a national community of professionals sharing the same values. Access resources, regional networking, sector vacancies, advocacy support, and a 20% training discount.

Become a member 20% training discount

The Model

With the right support, people who want to work can find the right job and flourish in it.

Supported Employment is an evidence-based approach used successfully for decades to support disabled people, particularly people with a Learning Disability and/or Autism, into paid mainstream employment.

It focuses on practical support in real workplaces, built around partnership between the person looking for work, the employer, and the Job Coach.

5-stage framework Evidence-based Real jobs

Starts with the person’s strengths, interests and ambitions.

Builds real partnerships with employers so support leads to lasting paid work.

Aims for independence, career development and long-term success.

Explore the model Underpinning values

Career Development Model showing employer and employee pathways moving upwards towards developing a career, with stages including getting to know the person, agreeing a plan together, understanding needs, getting the right job, getting the right worker, and arranging the right support. — The model shows how employer needs and employee aspirations are brought together through structured support, leading towards sustainable career development.

Five-stage supported employment framework

A clearer, cleaner explanation of how the model works in practice.

The framework below supports the visual model rather than competing with it. Each stage helps move the person closer to sustainable paid employment and long-term success at work.

Vocational Profile
Person-centred
Vocational Profiling starts by understanding the person’s skills, interests, aspirations and support needs through conversation, observation and partnership.
Job Finding
Employer-facing
Job Finding means actively developing real employment opportunities that match the person’s vocational profile and employer needs.
Job Analysis
Workplace-ready
Job Analysis looks closely at the workplace, the role and the natural supports already available so the job can be shaped around success.
Train & Support
Evidence-based
Training and Support happens in the real workplace, using proven methods to build confidence, competence and independence on the job.
Ongoing Support & Flourishing
Long-term
Ongoing Support and Flourishing sustains success over time. Support fades as independence grows, with the aim of stability, progression and belonging at work.