Unfinished Business: The ADA Turns 20

This is a guest post from Jeffrey Stoller, Director of Communications and Outreach, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.

On July 26, the nation will mark the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) being signed into law. It is rightly celebrated as a landmark civil rights bill that has benefited Americans both with and without disabilities.

Looking back over the past two decades, however, it is clear that removing physical barriers to work has not led automatically to meaningful employment opportunities for jobseekers with disabilities. In fact, a June 2010 report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that less than 22% of working age Americans with disabilities participate in the current labor force – compared to 70% of those without disabilities.

It seems that the ADA’s success in improving access to workplaces has not guaranteed access to work itself. Assistive technology has helped people with disabilities connect with essential business equipment and information, and ADA design standards have brought ramps, automatic doors and wider corridors to new and renovated buildings nationwide. Yet, far too few jobseekers with marketable skills are being hired.

The issue of finding job opportunities for people with disabilities has become a greater challenge as a “jobless recovery” threatens to emerge from the country’s troubled economy. The scarcity of available jobs has occurred just as the ADA Amendments of 2008 are increasing the number of employees and jobseekers officially defined as “disabled.”

Persistent obstacles to disability employment. A recent review of the ADA’s impact on employment by Rebecca Hastings of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) warned that many employers may still have an exaggerated sense of the cost of accommodating employees with disabilities. Companies are particularly uneasy about dealing with mental disabilities, or less obvious physical impairments. Others assume that ADA regulations will subject them to discrimination lawsuits for any business decision that adversely impacts their employees.

Interestingly, employers themselves acknowledge that supervisor confusion over ADA accommodation requirements and a failure to recognize a disabled person’s true skill levels are leading barriers to employing job candidates with disabilities. These problems, highlighted in a 2006 study of “Employer ADA Response” by Dr. Susanne Bruyere and colleagues at Cornell University, were especially common in small firms which serve as the leading source of new jobs created within the U.S. economy.

Weak enforcement of ADA employment provisions. The slow progress in increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities since 1990 may also be traced to a failure to distribute adequate information to covered employers or enforce the laws by government. As the Cornell study suggests, employers of all sizes report a need for more information on complying with ADA provisions, particularly those on how to properly accommodate disabled workers and jobseekers.

At the same time, jobseekers complain that governments have failed to devote sufficient resources to enforcing the employment discrimination laws and other regulations that make workplaces more accessible. For example, inadequate transportation for disabled commuters was a recently highlighted in the Boston Globe (June 28, 2010) in an article describing the failure of local police to ticket drivers who block access to bus stops.

What can be done to make the ADA a more effective tool for promoting disability employment? After 20 years, there is still a compelling need for disability groups to work more closely with employers to explain the relevant laws and encourage ways to introduce workers with disabilities into the incumbent workforce. Internships and programs that train jobseekers in high-demand skills are among the joint projects that employers and advocates can pursue together in order to give businesses the talent they are seeking. Clearly, there are many more years ahead before the ADA’s promise can be fully realized.

State Spotlight: Alaska

The State of Alaska Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education is undertaking a number of promising and innovative initiatives to increase the employment of people with disabilities throughout the state, including a customized entrepreneurship project, START-Up/Alaska (part of the START-Up/USA Initiative). Governor’s Council Executive Director Millie Ryan has over 20 years of experience in disability employment and has previously worked in the vocational rehabilitation field for the state and for multiple nonprofits that provide residential and vocational services to people with disabilities. She spoke with the NTAR Leadership Center about Alaska’s experiences.

• Listen to the podcast with Millie Ryan, Executive Director, Alaska Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education
• Read a transcript of the podcast
• Follow the Governor’s Council on Disabilities and Special Education on Twitter
• Read more about START-Up/Alaska

Consider the Possibilities of Social Media

This is a guest post from Robb C. Sewell-Wolff, Senior Writer/Editor, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers University

A few months ago, my colleague Savannah Barnett talked about some of the myths surrounding social media and highlighted the value and benefits of social media tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Hopefully, you’ve taken her words to heart and have braved this new frontier, perhaps poked your toes into what might have been uncharted waters, or maybe even immersed yourself completely in the revolution that is social media.

But what can you use social media to accomplish? In the first part of a two-part blog, I’m going to touch upon five things that you can use social media to do. Then, next week, I’ll follow up with a second blog that looks at a nonprofit organization that is doing amazing things with social media.

So…what can you do with social media?

1. You can start conversations.

Social media isn’t only about you spouting your ideas, thoughts, or opinions. In fact, social media works best when it creates a dialogue between people. It not only allows you the chance to be heard, but gives others the opportunity to let their voices be heard as well. It gives everyone the chance to contribute their opinions and knowledge to a discourse.

2. You can change conversations.

My friends on Facebook will often apologize for “hijacking” a thread I created — that is, taking the conversation off subject into different directions. But that is the beauty of social media. You can be talking about health care reform one minute, and then a dozen exchanges later, the subject has morphed into a discussion about the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Don’t get frustrated if your discussion goes off tangent. Accept it and let the conversations flow naturally. The results may be unexpected and quite rewarding.

3. You can network with others.

Social media allows you the chance to interact with individuals you might never typically encounter. I’m living proof of that fact. Aside from my career at the Heldrich Center, I’m a fiction writer. And I’ve used social media to network with others in publishing. Through social media, I became friends with a novelist and television writer who connected me with her literary agent. A friend on Facebook put me in contact with his brother who just so happens to be the founder of a theatre group in New York City. And now the theatre is willing to read a sample from my play. Frankly, these are networking opportunities I likely would have never made had it not been for social media.

4. You can create communities.

There are all kinds of communities online — for cancer patients and survivors, playwrights, parents of children with autism, and pet owners, to name but a few. These communities enable people to band together to support each other, exchange resources, and share triumphs and struggles. Thanks to web-based programs like Ning, which is available for a fee, anyone can create an online community that will bring together people who might never have the chance to interact and learn from each other.

5. You can make things happen.

Social media allows you another forum to make your goals become a reality. Again, let me share from my personal life. I’m a cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with melanoma in 2003. Last year, I got involved in the LIVESTRONG Challenge in Philadelphia, an event designed to raise money for cancer. With just six weeks to raise money for a 10-mile bike ride, I turned to Facebook and Twitter to seek financial support from friends, colleagues, and family. My fundraising goal was $250 but thanks to the generous support of many people, I was able to raise over $1,500…and that in the midst of a crippling recession. I wasn’t the only one to use social media to raise funds. Many LIVESTRONG participants did so. The result? Over $3.2 million was raised to fight cancer.

As I conclude, let me challenge you to take some time to think about how social media might benefit your organization. Could you use social media to create a virtual community for your constituents? Think about your funding sources. Are they online? How can you interact with them virtually and, perhaps, build the foundation for future funding? What are you trying to achieve? How can social media help to make your aspirations become reality?

Consider the possibilities and start putting social media to work for you and your organization. The power is in your hands. Are you going to use it?

Partner Spotlight: Eric Seleznow

Eric Seleznow, co-team leader of the NTAR Leadership Center’s State Leaders Innovation Institute’s Maryland team, has served as the Executive Director of Maryland’s Governor’s Workforce Investment Board since 2007. Throughout Eric’s extensive career in workforce development he has overseen the Montgomery County Maryland workforce development system, whose Workforce Investment Boards and One Stop Career Centers serve more than 10,000 people each year. An expert in corrections policy and workforce reentry initiatives, Eric brings a strong and diverse workforce perspective to his work with the State of Maryland and with the NTAR Leadership Center.

• Listen to the podcast with Eric Seleznow, Executive Director of Maryland’s Governor’s Workforce Investment Board and co-team leader of the Maryland State Leaders Innovation Institute effort
• Read a transcript of the podcast

One Size Fits All... with Style

This is a guest post from Sheila Fesko, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Community Inclusion

For workforce development professionals who serve people with the most significant barriers to careers, the idea of ‘one size fits all’ service has gotten a bad name. The phrase suggests the most basic sense of workforce development services; a cookie-cutter approach brought to bear on people who require flexibility, creativity and a personal touch. It suggests saving time at the expense of delivering quality services.

When we think of how to make our One Stop Career Centers more efficient, we can’t help but wonder how it is that providing services more efficiency and to a larger number of people can be a bad thing?

The answer is simple, if unfortunate: we seem to have mistaken the need for high volume as an excuse for low quality.

Personally, I like high-volume solutions. I see no reason why the best strategies should not work for the widest possible range of customers. Particularly when economic conditions create an overwhelming demand for workforce development services, and when businesses, similarly, are called upon to operate with the greatest possible efficiency to meet the needs of the shareholders and customers, we have a responsibility to sponsor practices that truly meet the needs of the widest possible range of service-seekers. Perhaps we can call these services ‘One Size Fits All… with Style’.

High quality high volume service invariably means interagency collaboration that allows easy access to all partner services for career-seekers and businesses. It means customer-service mindset in the simplest elements of a One Stop; i.e. signs and marketing materials that reference services that customers will understand, rather than bureaucratic agency titles and regulatory authorities. Finally, it means taking the time – in staff training, service design, and customer welcoming – to ensure we can deliver services quickly, but successfully.

Consider the example of the WorkSource One Stop Career Center in the Tri-Cities area of Washington State. More than most, this One Stop took very seriously the idea of seamless, collaborative service delivery. Rather than breaking different agencies in to separate areas of the Center, staff from all partners occupy space adjacent to the customer resource area of the center. When it became clear that using rotating agency schedules to staff the front desk made for sub-standard intake and orientation delivered by staff who would rather have been focusing on their ‘real’ jobs, the partners pooled their resources and hired a dedicated front desk team, whose sole purpose was to guarantee the best possible welcome for every customer who came through the door.

Further, a business services team was formed, again by pooling resources from multiple partners. Staff in this team were assigned sectors – i.e. Health Care, Agriculture, Information Technology, etc. – so that they could learn these industries and their workforce and economic development needs as thoroughly as possible. More than just staff who took job orders from local businesses, these staff become advisers to businesses, central to their growth and direction. With coordination, care and creativity, this One Stop became an engine of economic development.

This example demonstrates the value in:
• collaboration that emphasizes people and services over agency lines,
• a customer service mentality basic to the design and delivery of services, and
• an environment where Workforce Development is an essential aspect of Economic Development.

By orienting ourselves to the strategies that best serve our customers – businesses and career-seekers – we position ourselves to provide the most efficient, effective and impactful services possible. Further, we deliver services that create permanent change for our customers.

What could possibly save more time than that?

Ask an Expert: Hawaii's Susan Miller

QUICK QUESTIONS WITH: Susan Miller, Project Director for the Hawaii Medicaid Infrastructure Grant, HireAbilities Hawaii and a faculty member at the Center for Disability Studies at the University of Hawaii

Hire Abilities Hawaii, the state Medicaid Infrastructure Grant, was established in January 2005 to increase competitive employment outcomes for Hawaiians with disabilities, remove barriers to employment, and improve infrastructure in support of working people with disabilities. The NTAR Leadership Center spoke with Susan Miller, Director, about Hawaii’s efforts to promote employment opportunities for artists with disabilities in Hawaii’s large arts and tourism industry.

NTAR Leadership Center: Tell us about your exciting initiative that combines employment for artists with disabilities while promoting the state’s economic efforts to foster local arts and artists. How did you get started?

Susan Miller: In 2002, we responded to a request from the National Endowment for the Arts with Social Security and VSA Arts International to do a state survey on the status of access to careers in the arts for people with disabilities. At the time VSA Arts Hawaii was just reestablishing itself and the University of Hawaii's Center on Disability Studies was supporting that effort. We conducted the survey and found a lot of information that identified systems and institutional barriers for people with disabilities interested in art careers. We had a legislative summit and reported that to our state legislature. When the State of Hawaii applied for a Medicaid Infrastructure Grant (which we called "HireAbilities" ) we included information about our identified career barriers to the arts. The creative and cultural industry sector is a very big workforce sector in our state. It contributes $80 million to our state economy. Because of its size and importance, we felt it was relevant as a focus for employment for people with disabilities. We wanted to really try to get beyond the typically talked about disability employment opportunities.

NTAR Leadership Center: You mentioned Hawaii's large arts, culture, and tourism sector. Can you talk about the work you are doing that benefits people with disabilities, for example, the “100 x 100 Be a Part of Something Big” initiative?

Susan Miller: The “100 x 100” effort was an art show that we had at the 2010 Pacific Rim conference and was a demonstration of our work that we have been doing with the Department of Education. One of the things that our MIG Grant has done is given us the opportunity to work with the state Department of Education, the youth in transition effort and the Carl Perkin's Act Career and Educational Pathways . The art work displayed was a demonstration of the work of young artists that are in a project called Hawaii Arts at Work . Hawaii Arts at Work is a career and technical education program where novice and intermediate artists work to begin their transition to adult communities. They prepare for internships and apprenticeships and different kinds of employment in Hawaii’s creative industry sector.

So, while it may have looked like just your garden variety art show, it really was the culmination of six months of work in an instruction and production studio preparing people to begin to do transitions to apprenticeships and internships in the community through career and technical education pathways through the Department of Education. So, we're really proud of it because it involved the state Department of Education, our state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, the school and the family sitting together to develop an IEP (Individualized Education Program). This was important to getting this kind of employment goal into the IEPs. In turn, this gives the students an opportunity to have internships and to be in the work world rather than waiting until they graduate or complete high school and then start sort of scrambling around for work. They have the opportunity to have an internship or an apprenticeship while they're still in high school and can earn credit and, hopefully, it turns into a more permanent job.

NTAR Leadership Center: In general, what kinds of employers are you working with?

Susan Miller: On the island of Oahu there is somewhere around 100 organizations, non-profits and different organizations that are connected to what our Division of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism categorized as creative industries. We are talking about the potential of upwards to 100 different arts and cultural industries that are potential placement sites for interns or apprentices in addition to individual master artists that are part of our Hawaii Tourism Authority grants. We are really interested in demonstrating this particular sector because it's really something that's untapped.

We also have a hotel industry, a restaurant industry, and we have a lot of other jobs in other industries that traditionally people with disabilities are sort of aimed towards because it is entry level work and do not require really high skills. We think that there is an enormous opportunity to target creative industries because it's so untapped. There is somewhere upwards to 60 statewide museums that are funded in part by the Federal Government and by the state that have a mission to include people with disabilities in their employment, in their hiring practices. We think that's another untapped area where we can do some job development and placement for internships.

Work and Wellness

This is a guest post from Jeffrey Stoller, Director of Communications and Outreach, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development


Many people with disabilities have a special appreciation for how important a job is to a person’s well-being. This feeling comes from long years of experiencing disproportionately high unemployment despite having significant skills to share. It is not just the financial impact of being jobless that matters; there is a high emotional price that is paid as well.

May is a good time to remind the public and policymakers about the special importance of work to people eager to reach beyond their physical and emotional limitations. Every year since 1949, the National Mental Health Alliance (now known as Mental Health America) has designated the month of May as “Mental Health Month”. In May 2010, with millions of Americans out of work for the first time in their careers, this may be a “teachable moment” for many who have never recognized the connection between work and wellness.

The emotional toll of joblessness has been dramatically illustrated by two recent nationwide surveys conducted by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. The Center, which also hosts the NTAR Leadership Center, has tracked the views of American workers for more than a decade through its acclaimed Work Trends survey series. Its research generated headlines worldwide when it conducted a special poll of unemployed American workers just before Labor Day 2009 and again this spring.

The 1,200 jobless workers interviewed for last summer’s Anguish of Unemployment survey used language to describe their situation that would be familiar to anyone with disabilities who has sought – and been denied – an opportunity to work. The respondents described themselves as “discouraged”, “shaken”, “fearful”, “traumatized” and “scared of what will happen.” They reported “feeling worthless” and regretted that that they were “not contributing to family finances”.

The Great Recession of 2007-2009 took a heavy toll on these individuals. Three-quarters of the jobless reported stress in their daily lives, two-thirds reported being depressed, three-fifths felt helpless, and more than half said they were angry. More than half suffered the embarrassment of borrowing money from family or friends, and believed recent changes to the U.S. economy were fundamental and lasting.

Six months later, 900 of the same people expressed similar feelings in a new Heldrich Center survey entitled No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment. Nearly 80% of the jobseekers were still unemployed, and many reported a deep sense of frustration and low esteem due to what they saw as outright discrimination in hiring. In the words of the report’s co-authors, “The inability of these jobseekers to new find opportunities is an economic and cultural disaster.”


So what’s the “good news” here? It seems to me that millions of Americans are experiencing for the first time what it feels to be a skilled person who cannot connect with meaningful work. Few know and understand this feeling better than the many talented people with disabilities who have frequently encountered prospective employers who fail to recognize an applicant’s countless abilities. There is a window of opportunity here: to explain the goals of disability employment to a diverse group that suddenly see the same barriers to work.

Today’s unemployed could be important allies in the fight to expand disability employment in the years ahead. The people made jobless in the current economic downturn include many innovative, highly-trained, highly-educated workers who understand the pain of having their skills overlooked or being offered a substandard wage.

This May, the best way for people with disabilities to celebrate Mental Health Month may be to reach out to other jobseekers. They may find they have a lot in common.