Keith Bates

The Partnership is led by Keith who is a researcher, developer and consultant in Supported Employment with over 25 years’ experience developing new approaches and initiatives to respond to the national and international challenges of improving employment options for disabled people. He has worked with, and for, many local, regional and national governments including recent work with the Malaysian Prime Minister’s High Impact Unit.
 
Keith was presented with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise Promotion in 2011 for his work supporting people with a learning disability into self employment and enterprise and is a Visiting Research Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Research Institute of Health and Social Change.
 
As the former Head of Employment at the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities, Keith led a portfolio of research and development programmes, including the pioneering ‘In Business’ programme (supporting people with a learning disability to explore self-employment and small business ownership), ‘When I Grow up’ (working with schools, families and employers with early intervention for employment) and ‘Big Society?‘ (exploring the nature of employment support for people with learning disabilities in an age of austerity).
 
Having supported the establishment of the first company wholly owned and run by people with a learning disability in the UK, Keith has been active in developing social enterprises and co-operatives for and with people with disabilities ever since. Central to this work is the belief that people with learning disabilities can and do make great employees, colleagues and entrepreneurs.