Category: Jobs and Employment
sorry for posting this on here but was not sure where else to post.
so, if you had the influence of the senate, or the president. what type of jobs would you tell them to creat for us, the blind disable?
Personally, I don't think they should be concentrating on creating special jobs for the blind. What they should concentrate on is cracking down more seriously on employers who discriminate. and refuse to hire us or make small modifications to jobs to make them more accessible. I worked at a rehab agency for a long time, and we had rehab teachers who worked with employers to show them how they could incorporate blind people into their companies with simplel modifications and the willingness to let a rehab specialist spend a week or two with the employee helping them learn their jobs and the work arounds needed to make up for the blindness issue. I think employers often don't realize that they don't even have to pay for these types of modifications if they are willing to work with local rehab agencies.
And to add to that they refuse even when they don't have to pay.
Some claim perprietory information is why they can't allow rehab to do any modifications.
Even the Government doesn't choose accessible programing in many cases.
Sometimes this makes sense, but most time it doesn't. Rehab is a state agency and will not be stealing company secrets. Plus I don't believe most of the jobs would even get in these areas.
I think mostly they don't wish to have disabled persons visible in the workplace.
Just my opinion from lots of job creation schemes and working with many companies.
I would agree with the previous posters. I think some serious disability-awareness training is in order for many employers out there. I would also encourage public schools and VI teachers to help students coming out of high school prepare for the workforce. I think trial work periods are great. My local dvr offered these, but maybe not all of them do. I also can't stress work experience enough. I am a Case Manager, and believe me, it took a lot of volunteer and low-paying work to get where I am. I also think DVR should partner with other "regular" employment agencies. Just my two cents.