Charity Guide

Charity Guide is a non-profit thats mission is to “inspire and facilitate flexible volunteerism”.  They currently have an article under the “How to Make a Difference in a Few Hours” section of thier website about hiring people with a developmental disability, written by Beth Hering.  You can take a look at the article yourself by going here.

Transition at U of Kansas

The Transition Coalition at the University of Kansas has a great web site, including the work-in-progress of 101 Transition ideas.

Shoreline People First

Karen Ritter is in the process of organizing a People First group in Shoreline, WA.  The first meeting will be on Wednesday, November 19th at 7:30 PM.  The meeting will be held at the Shoreline Spartan Recreation Center which is located behind the Shoreline Senior Center at 18560 1st Avenue NE.  This introductory meeting will be used to talk about “What People First is-  How we can work together to educate, advocate and celebrate ourselves and our communities”.  If you have questions about the meeting, you can contact Karen at 206-478-1899 or e-mail kritter@ambitions.org

Welcome to the WiSe Blog!

Today begins a new era for Supported Employment News on the WiSe Web Site.  Rather than building each news article on the webpage, I will be posting that information here.  Please subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up on all the news and information we run across.  This blog is open to other authors as well, so please feel free to post relevant and appropriate items that you may know of as well.

Puget Sound Business Journal

The Puget Sound Business Journal has a great article about Courtney Block and her employment with Starbucks!

“My Next Steps: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Autism”

The Autism Center at the University of Washington has released a new resource DVD entitled “My Next Steps: A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Autism”.  For more information please visit the website

Local Olympian shines in TV commercial

Click on the link above to see the Wenatchee World article about Special Olympian Alex Darlington

First-of-Their-Kind Graduates

From News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education

June 3

When Washington State’s Bellevue Community College hold its commencement a week from Friday, among the graduates will be the first four products of the two-year institution’s unusual degree program for students with learning and developmental disabilities.

Leah Brand, Bergen Delisi, Anna Harnois and Trent Marshall will receive associate of occupational and life skills degrees from the Venture Program at Bellevue, which houses the associate degree program.

Mary Allason, director of the Venture Program, said the curriculum serves students with a wide range of disabilities. Some have attention deficit disorder, others autism, she said. Some students suffer from seizures and others had heart issues at birth that led to problems later in life, she said.

In order to address the needs of all these students, class sizes are kept small. Allason said classes have no more than 16 students. “That helps the teacher to be able to cater on an individual level,” she said.

Another way the program caters to the needs of the students is that the course load is taught over a longer period of time, Allason said. The 90 credits required to complete the degree are taken over four years.

Fifty-three students are enrolled in the program, with 47 attending this quarter. Allason said it is not uncommon for students to take a break, especially if a student gets a job.

Harnois, who is 26, has attention deficit disorder. She says that along with her learning disabilities, it can sometimes take her longer to “catch on to things,” but said she’s done well from the help of “great teachers.” She said she is “absolutely thrilled” to be among the first to receive the degree.

For her internship, which is a required part of the degree program, she worked in a day care center, where her duties included: reading and playing with the kids, help put supplies and materials away and get them out, etc.

“Pretty much I just helped the teachers in any way they needed to be helped,” she said.

She said the experience gave her an idea of what it would be like to work at a daycare center. Right now, Harnois doesn’t have a job after graduation, but will be looking after she graduates. She said she might try to get another day care job.

“I’d like to go into the child care field,” she said.

� James Heggen

Project Search

Read about the Project Search replication at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane!

DePaul Study Explores the Costs and Benefits of Workers with Disabilities

A DePaul University study, commissioned by the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce’s disabilityworks initiative, and made possible through a grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, examines the costs and benefits of employing people with disabilities. The report is entitled Exploring the Bottom Line: A Study of the Costs and Benefits of Workers with Disabilities. The study examined costs and benefits within three sectors (healthcare, retail, and hospitality) using focus groups and cost-benefit surveys. Findings from the focus group phase revealed the following central themes:

 

·        Disability employment agencies and disability advocates were critical for recruiting and hiring workers with disabilities

·        Managers were viewed as having biases against workers with disabilities and concerns with the cost of accommodations

·        Promotion opportunities were limited for workers with disabilities, with many identified as holding and remaining in entry-level positions

·        Costs associated with workers with disabilities were minimal and worth the expense

·        Benefits associated with workers with disabilities included having dedicated and reliable employees and a more diverse workforce.

 

Findings from the cost-benefit surveys found important benefits including:

 

·        Participants with disabilities from the retail and hospitality sectors stayed on the job longer than participants without disabilities

·        Across all sectors, participants with disabilities had fewer scheduled absences than those without disabilities

·        Regardless of sector, participants with and without disabilities had nearly identical job performance ratings

·        The number of worker’s compensation claims of retail participants with and without disabilities were equivalent. However, there were some areas where healthcare participants did not fare as well such as job tenure.

For access to the report and executive summary, see

 

http://www.disabilityworks.org/default.asp?contentID=1