Employment with support
The framework requires employment contracts and full social insurance. It covers individual jobs in ordinary workplaces, group-based employment and innovative projects within existing disability-service structures. These models have different degrees of inclusion. Eligible costs can include job coaching and personal assistance where another service does not already cover them. [2]
The Sozialministeriumservice’s role
Applications go to the Sozialministeriumservice (SMS), which also checks whether funding is used for its intended purpose. Provincial governments and public-law funds are the eligible applicants. The scheme therefore does not mean that every individual or business can claim a direct grant. Disabled people affected by a proposal must be involved in developing its concept.
Advice in Vienna and the wider reform
The Sozialministeriumservice – Landesstelle Wien is a regional contact point for advice about employment and social participation. The guideline followed research commissioned from Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU) on replacing workshop pocket money with insured wages. Funding selected projects did not itself replace the payment system in every workshop; it created a route for developing alternatives.