Need for Training and Career Counseling by People with Disabilities

Hi Career Counseling YAP Colleagues...- this press release came across my desk this morning - and I thought I would share with my YAP colleagues...

The striking finding in this poll to me was..

  • Less than half of PwDs looking for work have access to quality training programs, career counseling, and professional resources (e.g., job coach) needed to help with a job search.

My questions to you....

What can we do to change this? Are adult educators reaching out to the right places to assure that people with disabilities have access to training and career counseling?

For Immediate Release: January 10, 2014
Contact: Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
Tel: 202-365-0787
Email: jenniferm@respectabilityusa.org

New Poll of 3839 People in Disability Community Shows:

  • 3 out of 4 people with disabilities surveyed value a job and independence over government benefits (no partisan split)
  • Disability community sites employer perceptions that they will be "less successful than someone without a disability" as primary barrier to jobs
  • Disability community names top ways to impact work environment as change in employer attitudes, employer training, and change in structure of benefits system
  • Younger PwDs (Post IDEA/ADA Generations) More Interested in Self-advocacy
  • Less than half of PwDs looking for work have access to quality training programs, career counseling, and professional resources (e.g., job coach) needed to help with a job search.

(Washington, D.C.) A groundbreaking new poll of 3839 members of the disability community was released today by RespectAbilityUSA, a non-profit organization working to enable people with disabilities to have the opportunity to achieve the American dream. The poll was completed by 1,969 people with disabilities (PwDs) as well as 1,870 friends, family members, professionals, and volunteers in the disability community. The survey was sent out and posted online by more than a dozen national disability organizations and major leaders. Respondents also were provided the option to take the survey by phone.  

Nearly 3 out of 4 people with disabilities in the sample say it is more important to them to "have a job and be independent" than it is "that there is a government safety net of benefits so that I will be taken care of."  This holds true across political party lines. 

The first choice of PwD respondents as the primary barrier to finding a job with competitive wages is that "employers think I will be less successful than someone without a disability." An overwhelming 54% of family/friends/providers gave the same response. According to respondents, health or medical issues are a significant barrier for some PwDs. Additionally, the community points to the risk of losing benefits if a PwD works too much as a significant barrier to employment.





The disability community polled also sites the top ways to impact the work environment for PwDs as changes in employer attitudes, increased employer training on successfully recruiting, hiring, and accommodating employees with disabilities, and a change in disability benefits so that recipients could work without risking losing them altogether.



Said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, President of RespectAbilityUSA, "The safety net of benefits is critical to many, but clearly the people with disabilities polled overwhelmingly want jobs far more than they want to rely on government." Mizrahi, who herself is highly dyslexic and knows the joys and challenges of raising a child with multiple disabilities, continued, "It is also clear from the data that the disability community polled feels that too many people with disabilities (PwDs) are prevented from having a real job at a real wage because of employer misconceptions and because the structure of the benefit system prevents people from transitioning from dependency to independence.

According to the U.S. Census, roughly 1 out of every 5 Americans has a disability (56 million Americans) and an earlier study released by Laszlo Strategies found that 51% of Americans have a close friend or family member with a disability. Fully 70% of working age Americans with disabilities are outside the workforce, compared to 28% of people without disabilities. This percentage has been unchanged since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.   

While the US Census and others measure many demographics of Americans with disabilities, RespectAbilityUSA's poll is unprecedented with its size and scope of asking people with disabilities and their stakeholders their OPINIONS. This is important because people with disabilities have moved to a philosophy of "Nothing about us without us" and to achieve equal rights they must be heard. The data clearly shows that this community feels the weight of low expectations. Less than 1/3 of people surveyed in the disability community think that "society expects people with a disability to work" and yet 85% of people with disabilities say that, "having a job is important to their happiness."

The survey results also show significant differences by age. Young people with disabilities who were raised post ADA and IDEA (landmark civil rights laws) were finally able to go to public schools in a "least restricted environment" and to utilize curb cuts and other physical accommodations.  There is a strong correlation between the enactment of these laws and changes in attitudes amongst PwDs. 

Young people with disabilities are more interested in being involved in advocacy, and are more likely to oppose sheltered workshops and sub minimum wages for PwDs.  The younger PwDs surveyed are also still living at home with their parents, and are less comfortable with idea of affirmative action, though they think something must be done to ensure more PwDs enter the workforce.

More than 2/3 of PwDs surveyed agree with the statement "my disability gave me a challenge and I am more capable because of it" over "my disability is a barrier that limits me."  PwDs who are 18-29 feel even more strongly about their capabilities at 82%.


 
While there were 1,969 PwDs in the poll, 1 out of 5 do not consider themselves "disabled."  When asked an open-ended question of what word should be used, the overwhelming response included some combination of people first language, person, individuals, or people with disabilities, and over words like "handicapped" or "special needs."

Companies such as Walgreens, EY, AMC and others have shown that people with disabilities can make outstanding employees. However, less than half of PwD respondents looking for work "have access to quality training programs, career counseling, and professional resources (e.g., job coach) needed to help with a job search."

On the political front the poll data shows that the disability community gave the President, Congress and their governors failing grades when asked to rate them on a scale of 1-10 in how much they trust them to do the right thing to increase employment opportunities for people with disabilities. President Obama rated low, but highest of the three.  There was a partisan split on ratings of President Obama with 53% of Democrats rating him 7-10 versus only 7% of Republicans.  There was not, however, a split by party for ratings of Congress.

Fully 95% of the disability community polled was more likely to vote for a candidate if they have a strong record on improving opportunities for people with disabilities.  And nearly 9 out of 10 are more likely to vote for a candidate if they have a written statement on their website on specifically what they will do to improve opportunities for people with disabilities.  Seven out of ten people surveyed in the disability community are more likely to purchase or recommend products or services and to want to work places that are known to hire people with disabilities.

Voting rates among respondents were very high at 90%, however, of those who did not vote, nearly 40% faced a barrier to voting because of their disability.  Nearly 80% of the friends, family, professionals, and volunteers polled, helped a person with a disability determine who to vote for in the last election.

The survey was fielded online November 6-December 2, 2013.  The survey was shared via email lists more than a dozen national organizations and leaders in the disability community, as well as on social media. The survey also included questions on media, Hollywood and religion. That data will be released later. 

More information about methodology and more poll results can be found here.

 

Comments

Dr. S., and all

You asked the question below:

 

What can we do to change this? Are adult educators reaching out to the right places to assure that people with disabilities have access to training and career counseling?

If your question above was “answered correctly” by both private and public sources, my guess is that far more persons than just persons with disabilities would benefit. In real functional terms, all private and public post secondary training/educational institutions function structurally with most of the same funding sources and infrastructure. Those funding sources and infrastructure are significantly different than the ones supporting k-12 students.  Adult education professionals may not know or understand what limited resources exist for current or potential adult students with disabilities.

The funding structure in adult education lacks the appropriate design to support counselors, staff and administrators in that effort.  Counselors, staff and administrators have been working extremely hard with the resources available to them. They appear, to me, to be in an “educational/workforce “square peg, round hole” scenario.  Either the world inside adult education has to be changed , or the world outside ( workforce centers/ VR systems etc...) has to be changed to meet the needs of PwDs.

Adult education is not currently designed provide sufficient career counseling and professional resources to most of its students, including PwD’s. It is structured to do only what its narrow funding sources tell it to do.

Workforce systems are designed and funded to provide all participants with the same type of services. Specialized services, proven to be necessary for PwD’s, ( and really successful for most everybody else) are often underfunded or not fully extended to match the needs of the participants.

VR systems are designed to serve populations prominent in years past and lack the appropriate structure to serve many of the needs of current PwDs.

Once a decision is made as to who is going to provide the services specific to PwDs,   If done correctly, you should see an increase in availability of appropriate services to PwD’s.  Until then, It may be difficult to have a significant effect on the results of the survey mentioned in your post.

Robin - thanks for your thoughtful observations! Have you ever had experience with adult ed programs that embed career content in their academing program? That might solve some of the structure, fiscal, and administrative challenges that preclude adult ed from offering career counseling and guidance to students. Is there anyway, in the context of teaching math or science, that career content can actually be embedded in the instruction?

 

Just me thinking aloud - 

Thank you for your comments! Nice to have conversation....I hope you will have a dialogue with Jessica and Brittanie this coming week. Maybe they have suggestions for all of us how to make this work.

 

Judy

Dr. S,

 

There have been many versions of embedding additional content in ABE/GED/ESL ( adult education).  In the past, ESL was the easiest and usually most successful of those efforts.  There are current programs that use a mixture of embedding workforce content into adult ed. They seem to have a positive effect on the programs in terms of persistence and completion.  To my knowledge, the process of embedding workforce content into adult education does not change its funding structure on the front end. It may imply the addition of  services that would increase access to or improve the quality of counseling services in adult ed.That would not solve how to pay for it. Increased completion rates increase funding by a small percent. The ROI often seems, to adult ed, to be limited, in part due to the time involved in getting some PwDs to completion. Changing formulas to increase earned funding for reductions in unemployment or any monetary benefit recieved by the student might be useful.

There are things that can be done on individual district or local levels to help fill in small system gaps that occur. Here are some:

Increase communication and system problem solving by having a regular working meeting with adult/vocational counselors and local referral sources for PwDs.   

Adding information to the standard VR Community Referral Form (or other referral source forms) that allows training institutions to provide 504 accommodations faster and with increased accuracy.

Assign an individual person at the training institution to be a “point person” for PwDs.

If weighted funding exists for PwD’s who are completers, track the funds ‘earned’ and use them to specifically to increase services to PwDs.

Build in intro courses in adult ed that include the use of  career planning software. Use the results  to  provide platforms for counselor discussion about careers and their connection to the adult education content in general and specifically with PwDs.

I love your suggestions! Now lets figure out how to get these strategies pervasively in place! And I wonder if using Individualized Learning Plans, that Curtis addressed in his Webinar this week also holds promise. Thanks Robin for your continued dialogue. Sharing ideas like this add to the value of an online platform! I hope you post to Jessica and Brittanie this week - I think we can learn from their experiences.

 

Thanks,

 

Judy