SALEM, OR -- One Oregon agency hosts a series of webinars in October to educate hiring managers about the benefits of bringing on differently-abled employees.
Vocational Rehabilitation, also known as VR, helps people with disabilities find and keep a job. "We are here to remove any barriers that may exist for someone based on a disability that would prevent them from being competitively integrated and employed," says Oregon's VR Deputy Director Richard Clark, "We believe everybody can work with the right accommodations and the right support systems. So, we really focus our efforts on getting everyone into the workforce that we can."
He says VR clients have a range of disabilities and abilities, "You could go from that individual who is an I/DD population - Intellectual Disability population, all the way to that person who may have a hearing impairment that may be a PHD qualified individual."
Clark says VR can provide everything from help securing proper transportation to assistive technology, job coaches and training. The program started more than a hundred years ago, to help injured war vets return to the workforce. But it has since expanded. "Even as recent as 15-20 years ago, we still had homes, where we were putting people with disabilities in; or we had sheltered workshops, where they were making below minimum wage to do piece-work, and all these different activities," says Clark, "So we were kind of isolating them from the general population." Now the goal is to provide integrated life experience, "If you think about where you build your biggest connections in your life, and the friendships that you build and the community that you have, a lot of it stems from where you work."
As part of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, the state is hosting a series of webinars to educate families and potential employers. "VR is this best kept secret in government, right? And what we want to be able to do is try to find ways to get people to understand who we are and what we do, and the vast amount of things that we can impact," says Clark. Webinars are every Tuesday afternoon in October. Click HERE for details.
