By Rob McInnes, © Diversity World, April 2004

Whether as a job seeker, a job developer, or a proactive employer, anyone who has spent time promoting the employment of people with disabilities knows that rampant misinformation amongst employers is a major barrier. A lot of that misinformation is in the form of beliefs and assumptions that are widely-held and commonplace; but erroneous. Those of us in the field of employment and disability have come to call them “Myths” about workers with disabilities.

Back around 1993, the U.S. President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities addressed this head-on with their list of “Myths and Facts about People with Disabilities” – a fact sheet designed to help employers debunk their thinking. Many of the facts were based on a groundbreaking report from DuPont that contained multi-year data on its employees with disabilities. That list of Myths and Facts, or variations of it, has become a favored tool for initiatives to educate employers about workers with disabilities. It continues to be reproduced again and again in books, articles and on websites.

But, it is not only employers who hold and perpetuate myths and misinformation about employment and people with disabilities - people with disabilities and the organizations that represent them have also bought into many misleading notions and assumptions. Admittedly, a lot of our information about employment and disability is not based on hard data and research. Much of it is anecdotal and experiential. Sadly much of what has been proclaimed as fact is really just folklore.

I don’t think that academia has helped us much. A lot of good research has been done in recent years – research that has provided truly helpful insight into issues like the impact of severity of disability as it affects employment rates, statistics on the skills and educational levels of people with disabilities, and employer attitudes and employment practices around people with disabilities, etc. The sad thing is that most of that information is contained in ethereal documents that float in and out of research journals and academic publications – out of the normal reach of people with disabilities, job developers and employers. No one seems to be in the business of “tracking” that data, condensing and interpreting it for people with disabilities and their allies - and consolidating it where it can be readily found.

For your consideration, I want to challenge just a few examples of the misleading information and folklore that I encounter regularly in the field of employment and disability.

EMPLOYEES WITH DISABILITIES HAVE LOW TURNOVER RATES

This is a common sales pitch asserted by agencies that place people with disabilities. “Hire our job seekers and they will stay longer. They will have lower turnover rates – and reduce your costs.”

How true is it? Personally, I haven’t seen the data to support it. I do know that a 2003 study from the Disability Statistics Center of the University of California San Francisco indicated that retention rates for non-disabled employees was determined to be 96.8% in 2000 – while the retention rate for workers with disabilities was 93.8%.

Many of the larger companies that I have worked with tell me that, in employing people with disabilities, retention is a major issue for them. Those companies are frustrated because, when they go out of their way to recruit people with disabilities, those same employees leave their jobs sooner than people without disabilities. On the other hand, I have certainly heard from companies, usually smaller ones, that they have experienced very little turnover in their employees with disabilities. My best guess is that if there is a difference in the overall retention rates between disabled and non-disabled employees, it isn’t significant. I’d also venture a guess that when companies do experience lower rates of turnover from employees with disabilities it probably has more to do with that company’s supportive policies, practices and environment than it has to do with the disabilities of its employees.

THE ADA HAS INCREASED EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has most certainly given people with disabilities protection against employment discrimination, rights to accommodation and greater access to workplaces. Statistically, however, since the passing of the ADA, there has been no appreciable increase in employment rates for people with disabilities. In fact, some analysts have asserted that the ADA itself caused this stagnation in employment growth rates.

LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED

It kind of rolls of the tongue, doesn’t it? It’s a catchy little phrase – and catchy little phrases live long and die hard.

I was astounded, when just a few months ago, I last heard this one. It came from a cocky job developer who was addressing a group of employers: “As everyone knows, our people are the last to be hired and the first to be fired.” Okay, maybe “last to be hired” is true. It is pretty well-documented that people with disabilities are regularly discriminated against in the hiring process; but “first to be fired”? Where is the real evidence of that?

In my experience it is often just the opposite. On several occasions, I have spoken with employers from large and small companies who, in the midst of downsizing, have gone well out of their way to retain their employees with disabilities. Sometimes it has been because they don’t want to see a decrease in the participation rate for people with disabilities in their workforce. Sometimes it has been because they believe that these employees will not find re-employment as readily as non-disabled personnel. On one occasion, even when the person’s productivity was lower than other employees, they didn’t want to lose that individual’s exceptional contribution to the morale and spirit of the workplace.

Once someone has proven themselves to be a good employee, no company is going to readily let that person go – disability or no disability. Employers know this. In the scenario I described above, I know that when the job developer said “our people are… the first to be fired” the employers in the room heard that these folks were not likely to be valuable employees – a pretty costly price for using a catchy phrase.

TEN TIMES THE APPLICATIONS AND TEN TIMES THE INTERVIEWS

“People with disabilities have to make ten times as many applications as non-disabled people do before they are offered an interview. They also have to go to ten times as many interviews as people without disabilities – before they are offered a job.” Says who? I’ve asked people all over North America; but no one has been able to pin down the source of these often-quoted “statistics”.

THE COST OF ACCOMMODATING EMPLOYEES WITH DISABILITIES

We know that the cost of possible accommodations makes employers, particularly small companies, reluctant to consider employing people with disabilities. Over and over again, in responding to those concerns, I hear people quote that “Studies by the Office of Disability Employment Policy's Job Accommodation Network (JAN) have shown that 15% of accommodations cost nothing, 51% cost between $1 and $500, 12% cost between $501 and $1,000, and 22% cost more than $1,000”.

However, many employers equate disability with the need for accommodations. All that these numbers tell those employers is that they have a 50% chance of paying $500 or less to accommodate any workers with disabilities that they hire. We tend to leave off the sentence that precedes those statistics from JAN: “Most workers with disabilities require no special accommodations…”

In fact, Canadian research cited in the Conference Board of Canada’s “Tapping the Talents of People with Disabilities” indicates that less than 80% of people with disabilities who are employed need any form of accommodation. In the 1993 “Restricted Access” study of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, 73% of the employers surveyed said that their disabled workers required no special accommodations.

If indeed employers have an overriding fear of accommodation costs shouldn’t they first be assured that over 70% of workers with disabilities require no accommodations?

70+% UNEMPLOYMENT RATE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Not even close to the truth! This piece of misinformation is widespread enough to be considered an epidemic. It is a wonderful example of how research data can be misinterpreted. This assertion has great shock value – that at a time when the unemployment rate in the US is around 6% (7.5% in Canada) the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 10 – 12 times higher than it is for the non-disabled population! Quoting this unemployment rate is great ammunition for organizations that are seeking funding for their employment services for people with disabilities. On the other hand, it is disheartening news to students with disabilities and their families who are considering their prospects for future employment.

To understand why this assertion is in error, it is first necessary to understand what “unemployment rate” means. The term “unemployment rate” is best understood as the percentage of employable people actively seeking work, out of the total number of employable people. An unemployment rate of 6% means that 6% of all the people who are active in the labor market are currently not employed. From what I have ever encountered, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is typically 2.5 to 3 times higher than the national average. A recent article from Cornell University, drawing on data from the 2002 Current Population Survey suggests that the true unemployment rate for people with disabilities is about 14%. (A far cry from 70%, it is still high enough to be a compelling cause for concern.)

Given all this, it is also necessary to consider the concept of the “employment rate” – essentially, the percentage of working age people who are actually active in the labor market. The employment rate for people without disabilities is about 80%. The employment rate for people with disabilities who are able to work (about 40% of people with disabilities assert that they are not able to work) is roughly 55%.

So, rather than quoting an unemployment rate of 70% for people with disabilities, it would be more accurate to quote an unemployment rate of 14% (much higher, by the way, for people with severe disabilities) or to simply say that people with disabilities are 2.25 times as likely to be unemployed as their non-disabled counterparts.

I hope that some of the information or perspectives in this article will be helpful to you. In striving to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities, we are all engaged in a massive and complex social change. The enemy is the status quo – a culture that has historically treated people with disabilities as second-rate citizens, has sidelined their talents and has robbed them of their dreams. We need to be intelligent in our decisions and strategic in our actions. In doing this, myth and folklore are poor substitutes for sound facts.

Please consider sending us your opinions, perspectives, experiences or related resources on this topic. Unless you specify otherwise, your comments and contact information may be edited/published in a future edition of this Newsletter.

Are you interested in learning more about disbility and employment issues? Are you an employer? An educator? A service provider? A job seeker with a disability? On our Website, we have compiled information and links to a wide variety of topics and resources that can be useful to you.

By Michael Goodwill

In spring of 2003, the Division of Developmental Disabilities of King County organized a two-day event for people involved with the disability community. Entitled “Emerging Leaders,” this conference brought together the many different views of those dealing with issues of disability. In attendance were state legislators, county officials, non-profits and advocacy groups both large and small. The range of participants that presented their concerns and ideas helped strengthen each group’s understanding of how different issues affect the different areas of community and industry. By the end of the conference there was a renewed energy for those in attendance. We had been challenged to find new ways to raise awareness of our industry. It was apparent from the amount of ideas this small group generated that we needed a forum where people could gather and discuss ideas and thoughts about matters regarding disability issues and supported employment. It was during this event that Blue Highways found its roots.

Throughout the variety of issues and ideas that were raised, one common theme developed: legacy. It was clear that the legacy of our past leaders had helped create a basis for events such as “Emerging Leaders,” but the question remained: what now? It was time to reflect and learn about what our leaders did for our industry and for supported employment, but we also had to focus on moving down the road they had paved for us. It was time to extend that road for the “Emerging Leaders” of tomorrow. Although there are many accomplishments to learn from in the last 30 years, there are still avenues that have yet to be explored.

For the next few months our group continued to meet and map out the details. Although we primarily focused on supported employment, our new forum was to be a place where no idea would be excluded. It would be a place where people could gather and explore their passions. This would be a place where ideas could be expressed or created, and given direction and supported. We needed a place where people not only found new resources, but was a resource in and of itself. We found that place in Blue Highways.

The name derives from a book written by William Least Heat-Moon. As a young man, Heat-Moon absorbed himself in the blue lines that represented different highways on old maps. After a childhood of studying these lines, Heat-Moon would eventually find himself venturing on the highways they represented. Traveling from coast to coast, Heat-Moon realized that it was not in fact the highways that had been drawing him for so long; rather it was the new people and the endless range of different ideas, interactions, and human connections where he would find ultimate satisfaction. It was not the destination but the journey in which he found solace and fulfillment.

After one year the momentum of our grass-roots beginnings continues to build. Current membership of Blue Highways stands at more than 40 and is still growing. Blue Highways is making good on its pledge to provide a forum where people can gather and explore different avenues—where ideas can be applied for the inclusion, acceptance, and contribution of people with a disability in our community. While our meetings are attended by representatives from over half the supported employment vendors in King County, our group is not limited to job developers. Like Heat-Moon, we have found strength in the variety of people that enjoy Blue Highways. We regularly see parents, county officials, case managers, non-profits, and business owners at our monthly meetings. The diversity of insight from our membership provides an awesome atmosphere for the creation and exploration of ideas.

Because diversity is such an essential component to the development of ideas, the topics of Blue Highways’ conversations differ from month to month. Each month the steering committee meets to decide a topic. And though each month’s topics are different, we’re finding previous ideas are taking on a life of their own.

One example is the topic of high school DDD transition services, as students and families prepare to enter the workforce during their last year of school. During a Blue Highways conversation last year, the topic centered on transition students. By the end of the day, the group agreed on a common theme that needed to be addressed: improving the traditional transition resource fairs that seek to educate families and students on all the resources in one evening. Several members of the group volunteered to represent their respective service level (i.e. King County DDD; Person-Centered Planning Brokerage; Supported Employment provider) for future planning meetings. The goal was to work with school districts to provide employment resources in a more efficient manner to assist in navigating the multiple levels of the service system. The second planning meeting pulled in twice as many interested individuals with approximately 15 people in attendance. From this meeting, a Blue Highwa ys Transition Committee was established to develop goals and guidelines to help meet its goal. By the end of 2004, the Transition Committee plans to have this information available for all King County school districts.

Blue Highways likens our ideas to the blue lines on a map; they excite the mind’s sense of contribution to the needs of our industry. If left unexplored, however, nothing will be accomplished. It is when an idea is expressed, discussed, and challenged that progression begins. Blue Highways is the representation of those ideas and, like Heat-Moon, we do not necessarily base our success on our outcomes. Rather, it is the energy created and the relationships that are formed that are most important.

As Blue Highways grows, more people are meeting others with like minds and similar passions. With a reliance on the exploration of new ideas, Blue Highways does not define itself in terms of legacy, but the opportunity for legacies to be formed.

(Blue Highways will be presenting at the annual Ellensburg Supported Employment Conference in Washington State, June 2004. Contact Blue Highways for additional information or to join their email list.)

U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao has opened nominations for the 2004 New Freedom Initiative Award. The Award recognizes public-private partnerships and programs that have demonstrated a positive and measurable impact on the employment of people with disabilities through access to assistive technologies, the use of innovative training, hiring and retention techniques. It also recognizes those partnerships, programs or individuals who develop comprehensive strategies to enhance the ability of Americans with disabilities to enter and advance within the workforce of the 21st Century. Nominations are due May 21.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign collected survey responses from 94 alumni with spinal cord injuries who graduated between 1978 and 2002. The results indicate that 79 percent of graduates with paraplegia and 70 percent of those with quadriplegia were employed. In addition:

* 92 percent had worked for pay in the past five years;

* 90 percent had graduate degrees;

* 73 percent had annual personal incomes greater than $35,000;

* 42.8 percent had annual personal incomes in excess of $50,000.

Approximately $1 million will be awarded in sums of $20,000 - $25,000 to selected "Grass Roots Organizations" that Help individuals enter employment with career opportunities or increase skills and education, both through providing services such as education, pre and post job placement, mentoring, life skills training, employability skills training, job coaching, and through utilizing the services of the One-Stop Career Center. Deadline: May 7, 2004

The Work Incentive Grant Program provides grant funds to entities administering Workforce Investment Act Title I programs to augment the One-Stop delivery system to facilitate programmatic access and enhanced, streamlined service delivery for jobseekers with disabilities, including psychiatric and other hidden disabilities. Approximately $14 million to be allocated in grant sizes from $200,000 to $600,000. Deadline: May 11, 2004.

Innovation Network believes that ongoing program evaluation is the most powerful and underused tool for enhancing the ability of nonprofits to create lasting change in their communities. They have developed free online tools that can support organizations through that process.

If you have any interest in news and developments for people with disabilities in other parts of the world, including employment issues, Disability World is a good place to start.

This succinct online presentation outlines the Job Accommodation Network's recommended process for identifying and implementing successful job accommodation solutions.

Subtitle: What Adults with Disabilities Want All Parents to Know. Most parents of children with disabilities lack personal experience with adults with disabilities. Hearing from people who have lived the disability experience can provide all parents with essential information about the possibilities for their children. Reflections from a Different Journey includes forty inspiring and realistic essays written by successful adult role models who share what it is like to have grown up with a disability. (Discounted price available on link below.)

This latest installment of the Job Accommodation Network's "Consultant's Corner" deals with basic issues of stress in the workplace.

This new book addresses the issues of Canadians dealing with the midlife onset of a disability. "Hit By An Iceberg is a refreshingly blunt directive on how to deal with everything from insurance companies to government programs. If you think you should wait until you are struck down in your prime to purchase this book, think again. Hit By An Iceberg is not a rant about the plight of the disabled. It is, rather, a sensible treatise on how to organize your financial and personal life to protect yourself and family." (Review from the Toronto Star)

1. If you were just starting out as a supported employment agency, what would be the very first thing you would do in the way of exposure and warming the community up to what you had to offer?

2. What would be your approach if you had a client that loved to take the dead debris off plants and you saw this as opportunity to get this person involved in a nursery. A part owner of a nursery just happened to be the manager of the local bank. Would it be wrong to mention this possibility when you were in the bank for another reason or would you take advantage of the situation?

- Dorothy

Would you like information or advice on a particular issue related to disability & employment? Tie into our network of over 3000 readers! Send us an email and we will post your question in our next newsletter.

Have you visited our store lately? From now until April 30, 2004 we will be giving away a free copy of Denise Bissonnette’s CD, “Poems for the Wholehearted Journey” with all orders over $50 (excluding tax and shipping/handling charges). Recited by the Denise , these 21 poems that are delightfully woven around subtle yet profound truths of the human experience. True to the spirit of her work, Denise's poems both affirm us in our current life's journey and challenge us with new opportunities to live our lives with greater conviction and passion.

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