24 Nov
Mark your calendars… there will be a Families Promoting Employment Workshop on March 3, 2012 from 9:30am -4pm at the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion at 2702 Norland Avenue in Burnaby. Lunch will be provided. Stay tuned for more details.
16 Sep
In the past year, with the support of BACI, familyWORKs has continued to engage and inform families about the possibilities for paid employment for people with intellectual disabilities. Our story is one that has evolved from the start of the project in 2009 and since that time we have learned together about the different approaches for inclusive employment. In essence, BACI, along with families, are becoming even more disability confident.
In the past, the best thinking was to help people with disabilities get employment by using a model that can be described as “train and place” which is a model that is used in many sheltered workshops, enclaves and work crews. The problem is that many people stayed in “training” and never graduated to paid employment. Further, it is not an inclusive environment and people were often not aligned with their work preferences and instead just accepted what was available. At the time, totally segregated sheltered workshops were right thing to do, but we have evolved to better approaches that are more inclusive.
What we have learned now through the familyWORKs project is that there are more effective ways to create employment such as “supported” and “customized” employment that is based on a person’s strengths and preferences. Supported employment involves seeking competitive employment opportunities with modifications and supports built in to support the employee with a disability. Customized employment builds on supported employment by looking for jobs that don’t yet exist by using a process called “job carving”.
The customized employment approach is focused on what a person can do rather than what they can’t do. Customized employment is based on a model of “place and train” where a person is first placed in the position based on their strengths and preferences and then trained systematically to carry out the duties of the position. Thereafter, the job coach monitors the employment situation and then incrementally fades out of the daily employment situation and monitors the employment placement from a distance, troubleshooting when required.
We have also learned that families are an important part of the equation when it comes to employment for people with intellectual disabilities. The first reason is that families can set the stage for successful employment outcomes by starting early in their children’s life in thinking about the strengths, preferences and the possibilities of paid work. Moreover, creating parental expectations with respect to work is important along with creating opportunities for social interaction so that children have the opportunity to learn from social situations. If children are sheltered from social interactions then they don’t have the opportunities for learning. Also it is suggested that dealing with problem behaviours is easier with younger folks because as time goes on behaviours become more entrenched and more difficult to resolve. Further, families are also important because of their connections to “who they know” that helps to find employment.
familyWORKs also has been picking away at the Economic Inclusion projects that were brainstormed in early in our process. We have worked with the school system in a pilot project to achieve paid employment before students leave school, created a website that contains plenty of information about employment for people with disabilities, we have started to think about how to carry out asset-mapping, and started work on creating disability confidence and educating employers.
Since our inception we have met with families several times and next on our collective to-do list is to carry out asset-mapping with families so that we can surface our connections to improve our ability to find employment opportunities for the people we serve. In the coming year we will continue to come together on a regular basis to advance the inclusion of people into the economic community. Moreover, we are looking have started to think about how to carry out asset-mapping, and started work on creating disability confidence and educating employers.
20 May
Plan to attend this evening of networking and conversation lead by Cary Griffin focused on Customized Employment. What it is, how it’s working, the challenges and successes. This session introduces the role families play in establishing a foundation for their son’s and daughter’s career and how to build valuable work and social skills through childhood. In addition, Cary will address some of the emerging themes identified through various BC forums and stakeholder groups.
Date: Monday, June 27, 2011-05-16
Time: 6:30 – 9pm
6:30 – 7pm – Networking
7 - 8:30pm – Lecture
8:30 – 9pm – Networking
Cost: $10.00 at the door
RSVP to Barb Penner @ Barb.Penner@gov.bc.ca
Phone: 250-862-6924
Location: Performance Hall
Richmond Cultural Centre
7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond, BC
Visit www.griffinhammis.com for bio for Cary Griffin
9 May
The next familyWORKs meeting is on June 2 at 6pm at the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion at 2702 Norland Avenue in Burnaby. The focus of this meeting is on how to set the stage for success by starting to prepare for work in the high school years.
We will also be discussing an innovative and collaborative pilot project that involves the Burnaby School District, CBI Consultants, and BACI. The project seeks to follow four students in their last couple years of school and find them paid employment before leaving school thus increasing the chances of ongoing employment after leaving school.
We will have food and beverages available for those who attend. We hope to see you there! If you have any questions please contact Kevin Lusignan at 778.227.0161.
21 Jan
Hi everyone:
Please check out the link below to BC Personal Supports Network who is accepting applications for funding for assistive technology to help with employment (or even the intent to get employment). Please know that the application process is simple and easy.
So, if a person you know needs an IPAD or other assistive technology then get started with the application process.
8 Sep
Please check out this excellent Powerpoint/video on disability confidence created by Community Living Society. If you know of an employer who may be interested please send them this link.
27 Aug
We have scheduled a familyWORKs meeting on October 5th at the Burnaby Association for Community Inclusion from 6:30pm – 9pm. Please note that we are not serving a meal at this meeting so, it is advised to eat supper before you come. Also, please contact me at 778.227.0161 by October 1 if you require childminding so that you can attend the meeting.
Some of you may remember from the last meeting that we were going to focus on social asset-mapping to discover the potential contacts that we have collectively. However, after some discussion at our familyWORKs Governance meeting we decided that it would be best for families to first understand the Discovery process that looks to uncover a person’s strengths and interests so that these attributes can be matched up with possible employment opportunities (perhaps found through subsequent asset-mapping).
As a result, we will have presentations at the meeting on the Discovery process from people who carry out this process on a daily basis. We believe that if families understand the process the better then the process will be better informed to set the stage for success. In addition, we will touch on asset-mapping and talk about our economic inclusion projects.
We hope to see you there!
24 Aug
familyWORKs is attending and presenting a workshop at the Family Focus Conference in October. The conference is being held from the 22-24th in Whistler. We will be discussing the familyWORKs project, what we have learned along the way, and we will be looking at the different approaches to achieving employment for people with people with intellectual disabilities. We hope to see you there!
11 Aug
Do you want to learn about supported/customized employment? The Employment Specialist Series is designed for practitioners working with people who experience multiple barriers to obtaining employment, especially developmental disability, physical disability and/or mental health issues. The series will introduce working practitioners to applications of contemporary employment service models including supported employment, customized employment and competitive self employment. Participants will learn practical applications to implement employment services including, intake, discovery, job development, marketing, task analysis, coaching and fade out/follow-up. Click on this link for more information. Check out the Supported Employment Series 2010_2011 Flyer
3 Aug
CBI Consultants is sponsoring Dr. Paul Wehman from Virginia Commonwealth University to talk about employment for people with intellectual disabilities.
Dr. Paul Wehman of Virginia Commonwealth University will be presenting the most current research and practice on inclusive real work for real pay for students with disabilities during the high school years. Dr. Wehman is a pioneer of inclusive employment practices for students with disabilities and was voted one of the top 10 special educators of the millennium.
CBI Consultants have offered a $10 coupon for familyWORKs members off the normal registration price. Families can register through this link or by calling CBI Consultants at 604.320.1960.
