Trapped and Seeking Independence

If you haven't had a chance to read any of the Minnesota Star Tribune's A Matter of Dignity 5-part series, you should check it out. It's interactive and extremely well done. Reinforces why Personal Outcome Measures and Person-Centered Thinking is so critical for our field. This was part 1.

In a field on the outskirts of town, a man with Down syndrome is spending another day picking up garbage.

He wears faded pants, heavy gloves, a bright yellow vest and a name tag that says “Scott Rhude.”

His job is futile. Prairie winds blow debris from a landfill nearby faster than he and his co-workers can collect it. In the gray sky overhead, a turkey vulture circles in wide loops.

Rhude, 33, earns $2 an hour. He longs for more rewarding work — maybe at Best Buy, he says, or a library. But that would require personalized training, a job counselor and other services that aren’t available.

“He is stuck, stuck, stuck,” said his mother, Mary Rhude. “Every day that he works at the landfill is a day that he goes backward.”

Rhude is one of thousands of Minnesotans with disabilities who are employed by facilities known as sheltered workshops. They stuff envelopes, package candy or scrub toilets for just scraps of pay, with little hope of building better, more dignified lives.

Many states, inspired by a new civil rights movement to integrate the disabled into mainstream life, are shuttering places like this. Not Minnesota. It still subsidizes nearly 300 sheltered workshops and is now among the most segregated states in the nation for working people with intellectual disabilities.

Unique Job Opportunites Brewing

DENVER - A former special education teacher is helping the developmentally disabled find jobs by teaching them how to brew beer, and she even plans to hire some.Tiffany Fixter has a unique business idea: train and hire the disabled to help her brew beer in a new brewery."I was a director of a day program. It was there that I discovered there are not a lot of jobs for people with developmental disabilities," said Fixter.

Parents Create Custom Jobs for Their Children with Autism

Lori Ireland and a handful of other parents in Chapel Hill, N.C., had a simple dream: They wanted their teenage children to be able to have jobs someday. Sitting around with nothing productive to do would be unsatisfying and frustrating for their kids, not to mention expensive.But they also knew the dismal truth: It's tough for someone with autism to get a job.So, like an increasing number of parents with children on the autism spectrum, Ireland and her peers set out to employ them themselves. Their non-profit Extraordinary Ventures businesses, including one cleaning city buses and another making candles and other gifts, now employs 40 people with developmental disabilities in the Chapel Hill area.

Campaign Seeks to Improve Job Outlook for People with Disabilities

Maddie Hansen, left, chops onion,
while Sue Weber, a job coach,
looks on.

MANITOWOC, Wis. — Unemployment is a problem for people from all walks of life, but that’s especially true for those with disabilities. A new campaign in Manitowoc County called Jobs First! is seeking to close that employment gap.
The idea is to change employers’ perceptions of hiring people with disabilities “and at the same time raising the expectation on our students,” said David Koenig, Next Step UW and transition coordinator for the Manitowoc Public School District. Next Step UW is a program for 18- to 21-year-olds with developmental disabilities that is housed at the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc.
“We’re trying to provide more training opportunities for these students that are tied directly into employers’ expectations,” Koenig said.

Young Autistic Aduts Seek White-Collar Careers for the First Time

A few weeks ago, Matthew Koenig, 24, was doing data entry for below minimum wage at a supervised employment center for people with disabilities in St. Paul, Minn.
Koenig, who has autism, was happy to have a job in a tough economy, but soon realized the workplace wasn't well suited to him. His co-workers "had too broad of a range of [disabilities]," he said. "Some people had really serious problems."
Moreover, employees were graded using "a time study to measure efficiency," he said, "but the nature of my disability means I lack certain kinds of motor skills, so I can't type as quickly as other people." 

Politics Aside, Officials Find a Common Ground: Jobs for People with Disabilities

How to bring down the nation’s high unemployment rate and create jobs for millions of people seeking work dominated last weekend’s confab of governors in Williamsburg, Va., setting the stage for an admittedly “niche initiative” targeted at employing people with disabilities. “There are a lot of people who want to be working in our country, and aren’t given a shot,” says Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, who was selected by his peers to head the National Governors Association (NGA) for the next year.

With so many able-bodied people out of work, why would Markell choose to focus on the special-needs community? It’s not politically correct to even ask such a question, but Markell has a ready answer, and he is not the least fazed by the unseemliness of the inquiry. He says hiring people with disabilities is good for the bottom line of companies that are doing it, which means it’s good for the shareholders. “It’s not just for charity,” he told The Daily Beast. His NGA initiative is dubbed “A Better Bottom Line: Employing People With Disabilities.”

Added Value in Your Morning Cup of Coffee

Dale Dickerson puts his name
on packages he will fill.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- The Happy Cup Coffee Company is more than just a coffee roaster. The beans they roast have been ethically traded, meaning the farmers who harvested them were fairly paid.
But Happy Cup's mission is to employ some of Portland's developmentally disabled adults and provide them with not only a safe and productive working environment, but also something they aren't always used to receiving: a competitive wage.

People with Disabilities Learn Life Skills Through Aurora agency

CHICAGO -- On any given day, a person with a developmental disability may be learning job skills or working in a sheltered environment.

Someone overcoming addiction may be supported through counseling.

Someone with physical or developmental disabilities may be strengthening their body in warm-water therapy.

It may be happening throughout the Western suburbs. And it’s all under the programs and services offered by the Association for Individual Development.

Getting People with Disabilities Back to Work

AT&T (T), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Microsoft (MSFT), and a host of other big U.S. companies will meet in November with 60 prospective employees at an event in Morristown, N.J.

This is no ordinary networking schmoozefest. These would-be staffers are capable of handling a broad range of information technology jobs—from software programming to hardware engineering. Something else these people have in common: They all have disabilities.

Career Opportunities for Students with Disabilities, affiliated with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, convened the summit to reverse what it considers a disturbing increase in the rate of unemployment for people who are battling autism, visual impairments, or other physical or psychological disabilities. "The point of these summits is to encourage students to see that there are employers out there seeking them, and for employers out there to know there are qualified job-seekers," says Alan Muir, executive director of the group.

Md. Employers Look to Hire People with Developmental Disabilities

WESTMINSTER, Md. — Ask Erin Baldwin why she loves her job at Furnace Hills Coffee Co. in Westminster. She'll have a bunch of reasons.

She enjoys working with her parents, she's built a great friendship with a co-worker and she even has her own blend of coffee: Erin's Breakfast Blend.

That's not all.

"I like the smell of the coffee," Erin, 37, said last week, while roasting coffee beans at the business.

Furnace Hills Coffee opened in Westminster last week, and owner Dave Baldwin is hoping to hire a few new employees as business grows. He's hoping some of the applications are submitted by people with developmental disabilities, like his daughter. Erin has Down syndrome.

Illinois Cuts Endanger Jobs

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. -- In today’s economy, finding employment is harder than ever. Now just think if you have an intellectual disability, autism, blindness, hearing loss, or cerebral palsy. Although people with disabilities want to work, the challenges they face today are greater than ever before.
The budget passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate totally eliminates a program that is extremely vital to about 3,000 people with disabilities employed today because they have access to the long-term assistance of a job coach. This Division of Rehabilitation Services program only costs the State about $1M dollars per year to operate. The funds are used only for the purpose of keeping these individuals with the most significant disabilities employed. Without these services, the unemployment level in Illinois will raise by 3,000 more people.

Workers With Disabilities Feel Job Squeeze

A dose of reality on the job market for people with developmental disabilities. Granted, this economy and the job loss is taking its toll on everyone. Bravo to programs t hat continue to train and help people with disabilities find jobs. And, the quote of t he day: "Our people don't want to be dependent on public assistance," said Danielle Frazier, employment director at Community Options. "They want to work. They want to pay bills. They want to live on their own, just like you and me. They just need a chance."

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- It can be even tougher to get a job when you have a disability.
Community Options, a nonprofit agency on State Street, helps people with disabilities secure jobs. But not just any jobs. Jobs that pay minimum wage or better in a variety of workplaces - not just in warehouses and "sheltered workshops," where many of the other employees also have disabilities.
Not only do people with disabilities often battle stereotypes about what they can and cannot do on the job, but layoffs at a number of area businesses are adding to their already challenging job searches.
But while the nation's unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in July, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was 15.1 percent for the same month, according to the state Labor Department and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both agencies said they did not have state or regional unemployment figures related to people with disabilities.