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Social media, network capabilities, and digital communication technologies are changing the nature of work for individuals in WIL programs; further challenging the connections between industries and universities in their efforts to ensure individuals are work ready. However, digital technologies have provided new resources to help individuals socialize into the workplace and develop new skills for meeting the challenges of the information age that will also impact on how they get a job, and then do that job. The current literature on WIL, organizational behavior, and remote working, provides a theoretical framework for identifying the key points on the transitions experienced by individuals through WIL using the prism of social media, digital technologies, and the changes in work culture through remote working. Key issues in relation to transition are illustrated using two examples: one French and the other Canadian. The French study examines the effects of social media and digital technologies on individuals in WIL programs in relation to developing work readiness skills and communicating with supervisors and coworkers. The Canadian example examines the challenges internship students face when their workplace is predicated on remote working. The impact of social media, digital and communication technologies present new challenges for fulfilling the objectives of WIL programs and ensuring students are ready for work now and in the future.

Work experience helps develop skills necessary for life after high school. The California WorkAbility 1 (WA1) Program was developed to improve post-secondary outcomes for students with disabilities by providing temporary employment to students. Teacher experiences and perspectives reveal benefits and challenges of the WA1 Program. Success of the program is measured by how many student participants are hired by the employer after internship hours are completed. Challenges include funding and development of an equitable process for student selection. This chapter discusses strategies and recommendations for developing an effective work-experience program, including, acquiring and appropriating funds, staff placement, collaboration, equitable access, and education of all stakeholders.

This chapter will review teaching approaches used to develop students’ professional skills in preparation for their future role as veterinary practitioners. These approaches support student development beyond the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS. (2014). Day one competences. Retrieved from http://www.rcvs.org.uk/document-library/day-one-competences/) Day One Competences expected of graduates, and emphasize the key importance of life-long skills and resilience in a rapidly changing world.

As veterinary leaders, they will be expected to demonstrate skills in multidisciplinary group facilitation and community engagement. From a global perspective, students are encouraged to reflect on their learning in light of the impact on their local communities and the wider impact on the global ecosystem. This chapter provides an overview of how professional skills are developed over the course of the undergraduate program. Such approaches guide students as they learn to confront and engage with cognitive dissonance (CD) inherent to the role of the veterinary surgeon in practice. Areas where CD is clearly evident in practice will be considered, followed by a review of the teaching approaches to prepare students.

The teaching methods described will include the benefits and challenges of work-based placements, opportunities for self-development and reflection within a tightly packed curriculum, and the importance of facilitating student-led activities to build skills in leadership.

Many youth with a disability would like to work but encounter challenges finding employment. Vocational interventions can help youth with disabilities gain employment skills and jobs. In this chapter, we assess: (1) how vocational programs for youth with physical disabilities influence employment-related skills and outcomes; and (2) the common components of vocational programs for these youth.

Our research team conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature with six major databases: Medline, PsychInfo, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL, and Embase. Publications selected for inclusion met the following criteria: (1) peer-reviewed journal article, dissertation, or conference paper, published between 1990 and January 2014; (2) addresses vocational program or intervention for youth with physical disabilities; and (3) sample includes at least 50% youth (aged 15–25) with an acquired or congenital physical disability.

Of the 4,588 studies identified in our search, 8 met the inclusion criteria. In six of the studies, the majority of participants gained paid or unpaid employment after participating in a vocational program. Five studies showed improved knowledge and perceptions of employment. Most studies showed improvements in at least one vocational outcome such as knowledge about job searching, job interviews, advocating for workplace adaptations, and how to access services and supports. Common intervention components included: experiential learning, mentorship, and family involvement. Most programs took place in the community or rehabilitation centers that varied in length and were delivered by a variety of professionals. Most programs had a combination of group and individual components.

There is some evidence to suggest that vocational programs can influence employment outcomes for youth with physical disabilities. However, further research is needed with more rigorous and longitudinal designs.

This article outlines the strengths of applying ethnographic methods to policy evaluations, even to the study of exhaustively researched policies such as the New Deal for Young People (NDYP). Ethnography is understood as interdisciplinary, combining method and methodology into a perspective (Clifford, 1986) that looks at less conventional units of analysis, such as non-verbal expression and the symbolic use of objects and spaces. Four groups of findings from a study of the NDYP’s Voluntary Sector Option are outlined: the connotations of interviewing in the welfare to work context; institutional-disciplinary processes; deconstruction of dependency discourses and delivery space-time logistics. It is concluded that such a perspective is especially valuable in the context of normative social policies about which people have lay knowledge and common-sense beliefs (Brewer, 2000) and as such should be applied more widely to contemporary social policy evaluations.

This chapter is concerned with exploring the lived experience of welfare-to-work policy in rural Wales through the lens of participant observation with young people undertaking the initial course that represents their first encounter with the New Deal for Young People (NDYP).¹ I wish to respond to calls for qualitative explorations into marginalised rural life through discussing policy delivery personnel's² views of unemployed young people, and how some young people respond to the experience of being a rural welfare-to-work participant. The terms with which welfare practitioners speak about their clients and the client experience itself are both useful ways to look closely at the operation of the UK welfare programme, drawing out particular issues arising in the countryside. The chapter begins with a brief outline of the NDYP as an early mandatory welfare-to-work programme in the United Kingdom, before summarising some of the characteristics of youth unemployment. Drawing on empirical research undertaken in central Wales, I then outline some ways in which frontline practitioners characterise the 18–24-year olds with whom they work, before a detailed look at some individual stories from fieldwork with the young people themselves.

Spain has undergone a series of significant economic changes over the last decade, and the country has subsequently been faced with huge challenges in its efforts to integrate migrants into the labour market. With this in mind, the purpose of the following chapter is to analyse the Spanish labour market in the light of the new realities resulting from the effects of immigration and an increasingly pluralistic, open society. It covers Spain's achievements as well as the challenges that lie ahead, bearing in mind the global situation as well as the new social configuration of a country that has received such large numbers of migrants and refugees.

On a meso-level, various institutions play a fundamental role in the way migrants adjust to the economic, social, cultural and political spheres of Spanish society. The authors described various practices implemented by Spanish ‘business actors’, unions and NGOs for the labour integration. This research shows that coordination between the various employment policies at the meso-level has had a key influence on Spain's integration of migrants.