Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its Optional Protocol has 11 directives to secure "the right of persons with disabilities to work, on an equal basis with others" while the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 identified eight areas for action for the elimination of barriers, two of these being 'Employment' along with 'Education and training'. However, while these statements are made with real intent the data suggests that a great deal more needs to be done if the barriers to employment for people living with disability are to be eliminated.Currently much good work is being done to enhance the training received by people living with disabilities so they have the skills required to contribute with the labour, but there is less work being done to prepare and support SMEs in their efforts to engage people with disabilities. There is a significant need to ensure that SMEs can face the directives with confidence if the changes for people living with disabilities are to take place.SupportAbility has been created in order to address the gap in resources that currently stops SMEs in the furniture industry being full contributors to the aims of the UNCRPD. Its core aim is to provide resources to ensure that people living with disability can secure long-term employment through SMEs being able to supply the support they require from within the workplace.To this end, the project seeks to gain access to available resources and construct new ones for SME Directors, HR Officers and other managers so they can access the information they need when employing people with disability. In addition, SupportAbility will be creating a curriculum and e-Learning platform for a VET course to train furniture industry employees to be workplace mentors for people living with disabilities, so their peers are ready to give their support as well, especially during the initial phase of transition when entering a new place of work.SupportAbility has six Partner organisations that bring their experience in working with the SMEs active in the furniture industries, implementing VET for these SMEs, advocating for people living with disability, creating e-Learning activities, and analysing social research. The Partners are based across four countries – UK, Spain, Portugal and Turkey.The method for the project is founded on providing five substantial outputs as resources that can assist in bringing about the results. These will include (1) a report on the current state of affairs for furniture industry SMEs in employing people living with disability with an analysis of their needs. (2) a database providing resources for SME managers that can assist them in employing people with disability. (3) A User Guide to assist them in navigating and applying the database (4) A curriculum for the training of mentors to support people living with disability in the workplace. (5) An e-Learning platform that can be integrated into the implementation of the mentor course. The work will follow in this order, with the work on each output informing the development of the next one. There will also be a set of learning activities that will be included in the curriculum element as an implementation of that curriculum for 12 furniture industry employees to train as mentors.The Partners will be making contact with over 100 different organisations from across the sectors where they are working and engaging with 350-450 participants in order to reach their objectives. The Participants will mainly, though not exclusively, come from the countries where a Partner is located. The participants will take part in surveys, learning activities, as well as other events. They will also be engaged with the work on the project's data-driven analysis of disability in the furniture industry, the gathering of available resources for SMEs and the development of the curriculum for the mentor training.For many SMEs, being able to have a defined strategy to deal appropriately with employees that may also have disabilities will be new. The SupportAbility Partners expect that within furniture industry SMEs, there will be a significant increase in their sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in their approach to recruitment. The outputs will exist to enable SMEs to move past seeing the disability in a candidate for employment so they can engage with them as part of a team while having the confidence to deal with any special needs systemically.Beyond the project's lifetime, SupportAbility can become an example of a practical implementation of the ethical position stated within international directives like UNCRPD and the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020. In this context, SupportAbility can bring an increased inter-regional and transnational cooperation between public authorities in their VET commitment on behalf of supporting SMEs seeking to maximise accessibility to their world of work in all its forms.