What can you do? The Campaign for Disability Employment
by Sara
Editor’s Note: Sara’s post originally appeared on the Easter Seals Crossroads blog. Check it out!
At Easter Seals Crossroads, we emphasize ability in everyone. Each day we encourage children and adults to do what they think they cannot do. That may mean riding a bicycle for the first time, learning to drive a vehicle with adaptive equipment, or finding meaningful employment opportunities.
The Campaign for Disability Employment is a collaborative effort to promote positive employment outcomes for people with disabilities by encouraging employers and others to recognize the value and talent they bring to the workplace. “What can YOU do?” is a positive outreach initiative aimed at increasing the employment rate of people with disabilities by challenging common misperceptions.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP), the campaign is in partnership with several other organizations to offer resource materials that educate businesses on why hiring people with disabilities is important. As of May 2013, 20.7% of people with disabilities were employed, compared to 69.1% of people without disabilities.
Their award-winning public service announcement (PSA) was recently aired at the Indianapolis 500 and reached over 1.3 million people over the race weekend.
The Campaign for Disability Employment lists these ways in which YOU can make a difference:
- 1. Hire, Retain and Advance People with Disabilities — Businesses that are inclusive of people with disabilities promotes workplace success for everyone. At Easter Seals Crossroads, we provide pre-screened, qualified job candidates that are dedicated to long-term careers. A relationship is built between your business and needs and our staff and candidates so that there is a reduction in the risk with hiring for your positions. Additionally, long-term support is provided at no expense to ensure job retention and mutual satisfaction.
- 2. Be a Mentor — Inspire youth with disabilities by encouraging them to dream big and develop the skills they will need to succeed in the workplace. College students in Indianapolis can apply to be a mentor with Peer XChange, where students with autism are paired with college students to focus on skills that relate to time management, social activities, connecting to campus resources and transitioning to the college environment.
- 3. Share the “Can-do” spirit – Become a fan of their Facebook page and watch the PSA above to become an advocate for the campaign. Fan Easter Seals Crossroads on Facebook to interact and learn about how you can become more involved with the campaign directly in your community.
If you are a young professional in Indianapolis that would like to get more involved in this initiative, consider participating in our newly-formed young professionals group. We are looking for individuals who can be advocates for people with disabilities while educating the community about the services that we provide at Easter Seals Crossroads. For more information, contact me:
Sara Croft
317-466-2002
scroft@eastersealscrossroads.org.
July 19th, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Hi;
Recently i have been privaleged with the experience of living in a household family with a 24 year old male that has some autistic type behaviour patterns. My eyes have been opened up to the every day challenges a family finds themselves on a continual basis over and over again. The family will live in the same repetitive manner as the person with the diagnosis that he is on the spectrum of autism.As i have never had any experience of interaction with someone with these characteristics. I was somewhat dismayed at my inability to read or understand his body language, where in fact his body language appeared to be telling me the exact opposite to the tones in his voice when trying to communicate with myself or anyone else. So i very quickly learnt that it can be very difficult for them to express themselves to others.I am now intrigued and wanting to learn more. unfortunately this difficulty in communicating led to disinterest in talking to me, i have tried many ways to talk again with very little success. He likes pepsi cola so i am sure to grab a bottle on my way home, still with minimal success. then success i took him for a drive to buy some pepsi, our first time away from the house, At the shop he was first out the car and into the shop, i watched from a little a distance and was surprised to see the transaction for the pepsi go through without fuss. When out of hearing distance i checked with the cashier that all was ok, and she assured me that it is was. well back into the car and immediatley thinking what to do now, i say hey matty you wanna go for a drive, he says yes yes ok. So on the drive i start to realise. i have been looking to hard and trying to analyse something i had no understanding of what soever. It was then simplicity occured to me. Travis i said to myself keep things simple and we will see. So i turn the radio on and we both have a little sing along and the laughs begin, we went for a little walk and along the way started to communicate with out speaking just motioning things pointing smelling touching admiring tasting lemon grass, but we were now communicating yes indeed. this was to be the begining of a very special learning process for me. Living with autism can and will be no harder than living without autism we will all need to learn eachothers own special ways.