The National Office for the Judiciary (NOJ) is a leader in the employment of autistic people – said the Head of the Aura Association for Autistic Community, at the workshop organised for present and future employers at the Hungarian Academy of Justice.

From the beginning, Dr. Tünde Handó, President of the NOJ has been a strong supporter of autistic people. Mária Vadasné Tóth emphasised: as soon as they approached the NOJ in 2013 to participate in the employment rehabilitation program, the office immediately stood by the initiative. This is not typical for an employer – she said, as most autistic people are not employed despite their abilities.

Employment difficulties were confirmed by one of the presenters, employment rehabilitation consultant Edit Farkas. She described the results of a previous research, in which 267 families had been asked whether their autistic family members are employed. In 88 percent of the families, the autistic youngster didn’t get an opportunity in the labor market.

At the moment, two youngsters with Asperger’s syndrome are employed full time by the NOJ, at the Department of Registration and Client Relationship. They have been part of the supervision of the annual reports of non-governmental organizations by filing, digitalising and uploading documents to the database. The Budapest-Regional Court also has been employing an autistic youngster at its archives for years.

With 98 percent of its members having found employment since 2013, the Rehabilitation Program of the Aura Association counts as an exception. Participants of the recent workshop had the opportunity to get an insight on the good practices of the NOJ, in the hope of increasing the number of future employers.