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This newsletter is provided by Disabilities At Work to Human Resource professionals and others as a source of information regarding the issues surrounding employment of qualified people with disabilities. Disabilities At Work produces a weekly Internet radio show that airs each Wednesday at noon Eastern Time on the VoiceAmerica Business Network. Disabilities At Work Internet Radio provides the most thorough and comprehensive discussion of the ideas and programs supporting people with disabilities in the workplace.
In This Issue
INFORMATION ON HIRING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
INVESTING IN WORKERS WITH DISABILITIES
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
The U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees this national campaign, made the theme for this year “Profit by Investing in Workers with Disabilities,” and says the theme helps promote the valuable contributions people with disabilities make to America’s workplace and economy.
In a news release, Kathy Martinez, U.S. Department of Labor assistant secretary of Labor for Disability Employment Policy said the goal of National Disability Employment Awareness Month is to “improve employment opportunities that lead to good jobs and a secure economic future for people with disabilities and the nation as a whole."
In 1945, Congress designated the first week in October each year as "National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week." In 1988, Congress expanded the week to a month and changed its name to "National Disability Employment Awareness Month," a precursor to its current designation.
Business makes the most compelling case for hiring people with disabilities, according to Cecelia Taylor of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) in a recent blog. Calling the disabled an “overlooked talent pool,” she recommends hiring managers check out Business Case for Hiring People with Disabilities at www.askearn.org. She also suggests success stories at www.disability.gov and case studies at www.worksupport.com - all of which lay out the positive results companies experience hiring people with disabilities.
Taylor points out that making accommodations for people with disabilities often costs less than expected and the benefits of employing them far outweigh the expense. She cited statistics from the Job Accommodation Network that show 56% of accommodations cost absolutely nothing.
Finally, Taylor points out that federal and state tax incentives for businesses are part of the incentive for hiring people with disabilities. These include the Work Opportunity Tax Credit which is aimed at businesses that hire employees from 12 target groups, including veterans.
Information about tax incentives for hiring people with disabilities can be found at the SBA’s Hiring People with Disabilities guide.
Information about hiring people with disabilities can be found at the national Office on Disability Employment Policy.
Goodwill Industries International is a network of 165 community-based agencies in the United States and Canada with 14 affiliates in 13 other countries.
For decades, Goodwill agencies throughout North America have trained and hired people with disabilities to work in its stores, donation centers and career centers. Here are two examples shared in a recent Goodwill news release:
Ralph Poland suffered two strokes during open heart surgery. Doctors were not sure if he would ever walk again. Ralph was referred to Goodwill NeuroRehabilitation Services. He started home therapy and later received physical, occupational and speech therapies.
Eighteen months later, Ralph was living independently and even resumed driving. He now works part time as a floor assistant at a local Walmart. Ralph also volunteers at a local hospital doing repair work in the hospital's rehabilitation unit where he shares his story with patients, offering them inspiration for their recovery.
Shammonica McKinney was born with cerebral palsy and is a single mother of two children. Shammonica prefers to live on her own and independently care for her children. She was referred to Goodwill Industries and completed a customized five-month work adjustment and skills training course.
With the help of her Goodwill job coach, Shammonica applied for and accepted a part-time position at an Olive Garden restaurant as a silverware wrapper. Six months later, Shammonica asked her manager for additional responsibilities. She was promoted to hostess, a full time position. Shammonica is currently in school to fulfill her goal of becoming a phlebotomist.
To learn more about Goodwill's career training and employment programs for the disabled, visit www.goodwill.org.
Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis recently announced over $2 million would be awarded as part of a second round of funding for the “Add Us In” initiative which began last year.
The goal of "Add Us In" is to identify and develop strategies that will increase the capacity of small businesses and communities to employ youth and young adults with disabilities. The funding would be awarded to a consortia led by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois in Chicago, the National Organization on Disability in New York City, TransCen Inc. in Rockville, Maryland, and the World Institute on Disability in Oakland, California.
The consortia will create models and strategies that can be used nationwide by businesses and employers to reach out to people with disabilities and develop partnerships between these businesses and the organizations that support people with disabilities.
To learn more about the “Add Us In” initiative, visit http://www.dol.gov/odep.
INFORMATION ON HIRING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Disability.gov offers employers information on topics such as recruiting and hiring, interviewing and employment laws and regulations.
Office of Disability Employment Policy - or ODEP – is part of the U.S. Department of Labor and it acts as an advocate and facilitator for people with disabilities in the workforce.
ODEP’s Add Us In initiative works to identify and develop strategies to increase employment opportunities within the small business community for individuals with disabilities.
The Job Accommodation Network is a leading source of free, expert and confidential guidance on workplace accommodations and disability employment issues.
The Employer Assistance Resources Network (EARN) establishes connections between employers and qualified candidates with disabilities.
The Workforce Recruitment Program (WRP) helps employers find qualified college students and recent graduates with disabilities who are looking for summer and full-time job opportunities.
DESERVING BUSINESSES TO BE RECOGNIZED
Disabilities At Work has launched an initiative to recognize businesses that support people with disabilities.
Through this program, community service providers, affiliates of the USBLN, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, schools and school districts, or similar entities that work with, or on behalf of, people with disabilities can endorse a business that supports the disabled community either through hiring practices or philanthropy.
The endorsed business can then display the unique Disabilities At Work logo for all of its customers to see.
To endorse a business, simply go to the Disabilities At Work website, register as an agency and begin endorsing your deserving business partners. Businesses should connect with their agency partners and ask them to do the same. The first round of “honor roll” of businesses will be announced nationally at the end of October.
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Cutting Medicaid as part of President Obama’s debt reduction plan would be “catastrophic” according to disability-rights advocates protesting at the Capitol in Washington D.C. on September 21.
The story, reported by Debbie Siegelbaum of The Hill, quoted Jessica Sadowski of Maryland as saying that “states are cutting Medicaid, and federal cuts on top of state cuts would be catastrophic.”
President Obama’s debt-reduction plan proposed to cut $3 trillion in spending over the next decade, with about $580 billion of that coming from cuts to entitlement programs.
From Siegelbaum’s story:
Protesters of the plan, many themselves with disabilities, demanded that Congress maintain funding for those in need.
“I’d just like to see absolutely no cuts. You’re taking from the poor, the disabled and seniors — how much more can they take?” asked Carol Jones, from Georgia.
More than 90 national advocacy groups including AARP and the American Association of People with Disabilities sponsored the rally, one of several to be conducted across the country.
For Arlington, Virginia, resident Caroline Levy, whose five-year-old son Adam suffers from cognitive and physical disabilities, Medicaid is a necessary government expenditure.
“My motto about Medicaid is that fair isn’t when everybody gets the same thing,” she said. “Fair is when everybody gets what they need.”
Deborah Kendrick, writing in the Columbus Post Dispatch said the unemployment rate for people with disabilities was “a whopping 70% and holding,” and she blamed a “wrongheaded bias that disability impedes productivity.”
Kendrick was writing a profile about a unique employment agency run by Joyce Bender, a local search firm executive who joined the ranks of America's disabled population when she was diagnosed with epilepsy in 1985.
Bender Consulting Services opened in 1995 and it concentrates exclusively on job seekers with disabilities, placing them in the industries of software development, finance, human resources, communications and more. Kendrick calls her success rate “nothing short of dazzling”
From the story:
Bender offers employers a deal no sensible CEO should refuse. For the first six months of every placement, the newly hired candidate works for Bender Consulting. Bender Consulting provides all benefits — including the excellent health care package she recognizes as essential to her particular clientele.
If, after six months, the hiring company is satisfied with the new hire's performance, the employee moves off the Bender Consulting payroll and onto that of the company. To date, a whopping 90% of Bender's placements have made that transition.
October is National Disability Employment Awareness month. Now could just be a perfect time for employers who have hesitated to take the risk, to hire people who have a group track record of competency and dedication.
See more at Bender Consulting http://www.benderconsult.com/index2.html.
Of the 647 characters appearing regularly this year on the major television networks (ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox and NBC), just five have disabilities. That’s down by one from last year.
The findings come from an annual report on minority representation on television released recently by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. It’s based on an analysis of the 91 scripted shows that networks have announced for the 2011-2012 season.
“People with disabilities represent our country’s largest minority,” said Christine Bruno, co-chair of the Tri-Union I AM PWD campaign to promote inclusion of people with disabilities in entertainment, which helped conduct the report. “We look to our stages and screens not only for entertainment, but to hold a mirror up to society.”
The characters with disabilities that are represented regularly are Max Braverman on NBC’s “Parenthood” who has Asperger’s syndrome; a character on Fox’s “Glee” who uses a wheelchair; the lead on Fox’s “House” who uses a cane; a character on CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” who uses prosthetic legs; and a woman on Fox’s “Raising Hope” who has Alzheimer’s disease.
As October dawns, the most popular movie in America is “Dolphins Tale” based on a true story about Winter, a 3-month old bottleneck dolphin who was successfully treated for a life-threatening infection at the Clearwater Florida Marine Aquarium in 2005.
The infection, however, claimed the mammal’s tail. To ensure the dolphin could continue to swim and negotiate its way through the water, the staff at Clearwater created a silicone prosthetic tale for the dolphin.
Now it turns out that Winter, who plays herself in the movie, is becoming an inspiration for people – especially children - with disabilities.
California news outlets reported Winter’s affect on 11-year-old Megan McKeon of Fresno, who said the dolphin’s success with an artificial tail motivated her to wear her own prosthetic leg, which she had avoided because it was bulky and uncomfortable.
From the Fresno Bee and reporter Paula Lloyd:
"Winter understands me," Megan told her mother after swimming with the dolphin at its Florida home.
An earlier, chance meeting with the man who worked on Winter's new tail has helped Megan. He invented the gel liner that makes Megan's prosthetic leg fit more comfortably to her hip socket and the small section of femur that remains of her left leg.
Megan's connection to Winter began in 2009 when she and her parents attended a sports competition for disabled athletes in La Jolla.
And from Lorenzo Benet writing on People Magazine’s website:
"I didn't like wearing my limb," says Megan, who lost her left leg in a fire as an infant."But Winter wears her tail, so it makes sense for me to wear my leg, so I can be an inspiration to others."
The staff at Clearwater sees this kind of transformation among children with special needs on an almost daily basis. "Children have a unique and strong attraction to Winter," says David Yates, director of the Clearwater Aquarium.
The dolphin's strongest devotees include children coping with autism or limb loss caused by disease and accidents. Wounded veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan have also found inspiration from Winter. "Thousands of people come through here and see Winter, but many of the kids and adults with disabilities stay in touch with us on a regular basis," says Yates.
A lucky few get treated to close encounters with Winter inside her pool, though those visits are restricted and generally brief. But children with disabilities take precedence, says Abby Stone, 31, a senior marine mammal trainer at the aquarium.
"There's a real connection," says Stone. "The kids are appreciative and happy and the time with Winter charges them up to face whatever challenges lie ahead. It's remarkable."
Disabilities At Work
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Trenton, NJ 08608
908-975-3211
www.DisabilitiesAtWork.org
info@DisabilitiesAtWork.org
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