This document discusses improving employment opportunities for people with disabilities through supported employment. It provides data showing high unemployment and poverty rates for people with disabilities. Common barriers to employment for this group are also identified, such as lack of support, stigma, and beliefs about lack of potential. The document then outlines a six-step process for developing employment, including creating a positive profile, defining the purpose of work, exploring opportunities, selecting an appropriate support model, identifying networks, and taking action. It emphasizes focusing on individuals' strengths and contributions.
2. Working on Purpose: Six
Steps to Employment
and a Framework for Planning
Niki Stevenson and Carol Blessing
hosted by:
In association with:
3. Excerpted from the Citizen-Centered Leadership
Community of Practice learning series
www.cclds.org
See how 15 weeks can make a world of difference!
4. 2013 Disability Employment
Data
United States
• 26% working age adults
are unemployed; 69%
of persons with
cognitive disabilities
are not in the labor
force
• 34% (compared to 19%
people w/o disability)
likely to be employed
only part time
Canada
• Over 55% working age
adults w/disabilities &
70% w/intellectual
disabilities are
unemployed or out of
the labour market
• Women w/disabilities
unemployment rate is
70%
www.disabilitystatistics.org Canadian Association for Community Living
5. 2013 Disability Employment
Data
United States
• Unemployment rate for
people w/disabilities
13.2% compared to
7.1%
• Poverty level of people
with cognitive
disabilities 34.4% in
2012
Canada
• Over 75% of adults with
intellectual disabilities
not living with family
members live in
poverty
Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S
Department of Labor
Canadian Association for Community Living
6. Why Person’s with Disability
Are Not Working
• Lack of needed disability support and assistance
• Real and perceived disincentives in social insurance
schemes
• Stigma and discrimination
• Belief in lack of potential
7. 7
Our power comes from intentional decisions about our
own
attitudes and behaviors. Where have we become
complacent in our expectations about people with disabilities
and citizenship? - Connie Ferrell
8. You are aYou are a citizencitizen where youwhere you
are defined by what youare defined by what you
contribute,contribute, not by whatnot by what
you consumeyou consume
~ Mike Green
10. How do you invite another’sHow do you invite another’s
higher purposehigher purpose to show upto show up
and findand find expressionexpression??
~John O’Brien
13. Introducing Working on Purpose: Six
Steps to Employment!
1.Develop a Positive Profile
2.Define the Purpose Work Will Address
3.Explore the Opportunity Field
4.Select the best Employment Model
5.Identify Networks and Market Strategies
6.Plan and Take Action
14. Step 1: Develop a Positive Profile
• Values & Ideals
• Environmental
Preferences
• Life & Work
Experiences
• Interests
• Vision of Contribution
& Valued Social
Roles
• Dreams, Goals,
Purpose
• Talents
• Skills
• Learning Style
• Support System
• Immediate Priorities
• Positive Traits
15. In addition, be aware of preferences &
priorities regarding:
• Work Conditions
# of supervisors/co-
workers
Level of physical
activity
Pay scale
• Geographic Location
Transportation
availability
• Environment
Inside/Outside
Busy/Quiet
Formal/Casual
• Hours/Days
AM/PM
Weekdays/Weekends/
Holidays
16. Step 2: Define the Purpose (for work)
• Get secure?
• Get balance?
• Build skill?
• Build experience?
• Get ahead?
• Get by?
• Skills
• Get feet wet?
• Trying wings?
• A “calling”?
17. Step 3: Explore the Opportunities
•Develop a community mapping asset inventory plan
including the preference/priority detail
•Establish the geographic boundary for research
•Conduct a community-mapping inventory (ABCD building
blocks)
• Association Asset Assessment
• Geographic Asset Assessment
• Economic Asset Inventory
• Institutional Asset Inventory
• Cultural
18. Step 4: Select the Best Support Model
• For getting, learning
and keeping a job
• “Behind the Scenes”
• Individual Placement
• Straight Competitive
• Self-Employment
• For providing
appropriate
assistance (type,
frequency, delivery)
• Assistive technology
• Environmental &/or Social
Assistance
• Learning style/preference
• Who, What, When,
Where, How
19. Step 5: Identify and Leverage Networks &
Marketing Strategies
Prioritize the list that was developed out of the
community mapping effort
Use personal and professional contacts (yours,
theirs) to generate a list of people who are directly
and indirectly linked to those areas
20. Step 6. Take Action!
Places to
explore
Potential Roles What needs to
happen now?
People who
can/will help
By when?
20
22. Working on Purpose Toolkit
•A sample of field-based activities with instructions to
get you started
•Information gathered in these activities correlates to
sections in the Framework as numbered
•Avoid limiting the experience to these few exercises.
Add your own! Be creative! Have fun!
26. Thank You!
Carol Blessing, LMSW
Employment & Disability
Institute
Ithaca, New York
cjb39@cornell.edu
Niki Stevenson, MSW
RSW
Extend-A-Family
Waterloo Region
Ontario, Canada
nikis@eafwr.on.ca
Notas do Editor
Expectation of Employment? Why are people with disabilities often left out of that expectation?
Citizens are individuals who bring something to the equation of community. There is give and take, of equal value: reciprocity. Consumers use up or deplete resources. There is an impersonal relationship void of social responsibility and contribution. You literally “buy a life…”
Working on Purpose…
We think that it is important to organize the idea of work based on the “calling” that one is given. This is the higher purpose that Beth Mount refers to. Too often we decide for people what we believe they will be good at or like to do. We set limits on our expectations for them and about them.
Notice that we identified on this slide the kinds of information you want to look for when filling out the template with someone, and identified which area is related to the Six Steps to Employment. You have a blank copy of this template as a separate handout in your materials.
A Framework for Planning action plan has been included as a handout in your material.
Most important in the process is taking action. Too often plans are made with people and then they sit there, relatively inert. The intent of 6 Steps to Employment is to move and to keep moving until the person has secured the right job for the right reasons in the right setting.
We have learned that it is much easier to assist someone in finding a job when we pay attention to each of these six basic areas.
5 Valued Outcomes; PCP
Interest, Needs, Higher Purpose
Research, ABCD
More than one way… Indiv Placement – Customized – Job Creation/Employment Proposals
5 Commitments that Build Community and ABCD
Get moving
Let’s look briefly at each of the six steps.
This is the kind of information that you want to gather in a positive profile. You completed a one page profile on our first day together. You certainly can begin to populate the Framework using that material and expanding on it around any/all of these areas.
It is useful to have greater understanding/detail around this kind of information.
Denise Bissonnette taught us how important it is to understand what work means to a person in a given time. A lot of young people may want to work just to have money to do the things that teenagers do. Those of us who are older may choose work that makes a statement about who we are or what we believe in. Others may be working to make sure there is a roof over their head and food on the table.
What is important about this step is the conversation with the person. It is too easy to assume that they want from work what we want from it – or that we want FOR them something that they do not necessarily want for themselves.
Remember the building blocks of ABCD:
Individual inventory – in this case can be the positive profile that has been developing with the person
Geographic inventory – “lay of the land” including access to transportation
Association inventory – group of local citizens joined with a shared purpose; don’t forget “third places”
Economic inventory – identify all the existing operating forms of commerce, especially related to area of employment interest, but remember the “hidden” areas that my surface
Institutional inventory – businesses, nonprofit agencies and government agencies
Cultural inventory
A Framework for Planning action plan has been included as a handout in your material.
Most important in the process is taking action. Too often plans are made with people and then they sit there, relatively inert. The intent of 6 Steps to Employment is to move and to keep moving until the person has secured the right job for the right reasons in the right setting.
Most important in the process is taking action. Too often plans are made with people and then they sit there, relatively inert. The intent of 6 Steps to Employment is to move and to keep moving until the person has secured the right job for the right reasons in the right setting.
We think that it is important to organize the idea of work based on the “calling” that one is given. This is the higher purpose that Beth Mount refers to. Too often we decide for people what we believe they will be good at or like to do. We set limits on our expectations for them and about them.
Notice that we identified on this slide the kinds of information you want to look for when filling out the template with someone, and identified which area is related to the Six Steps to Employment. You have a blank copy of this template as a separate handout in your materials.
A Framework for Planning action plan has been included as a handout in your material.
Most important in the process is taking action. Too often plans are made with people and then they sit there, relatively inert. The intent of 6 Steps to Employment is to move and to keep moving until the person has secured the right job for the right reasons in the right setting.