The Journal News (Westerchester County, NY), December 12, 2004, Sunday

Copyright 2004 The Journal News (Westerchester County, NY)
All Rights Reserved
The Journal News

December 12, 2004 Sunday

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A

HEADLINE: Mainstream jobs prove to be a benefit

SERIES: Coming of Age

BYLINE: Amy Sara Clark

BODY:
Placement agency says diversity, cost also aid employers
Amy Sara Clark
For The Journal News
Twenty-one-year-old Natalie Troupe spent the past few years trying to answer one of the quintessential questions facing American youth: What should I do with my life? She tried working at a plant nursery, a nursing home and a nursery school. Now she's trying out clerical work at a local law firm.
Since her senior year in high school, Troupe has been working with the life-planning department at Westchester ARC, an agency and advocacy organization for people with disabilities, to figure out a career path that's appropriate for her.
"Their goal is to help different people get jobs. Jobs that they feel comfortable in, jobs that they think are nice," said Troupe, who graduated from Rye Neck High School in 2003.
It may seem like a given that people with developmental disabilities would try to find appropriate career paths, but up until the 1980s, it was not. Back then, people with developmental disabilities generally did whatever work was offered at sheltered workshops set up just for them.
Then a new approach revolutionized the attitudes of professionals and of people with developmental disabilities.
"Person-centered planning asks, 'Who is this person, what are their God-given gifts?' " said Carol Blessing of Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Then it builds a plan around that individual, rather than putting the individual into an existing formula.
To begin her process of self-exploration, Troupe sat down with the life-planning program's coordinator, Ralph Szur, and mapped out her skills and interests. Once Troupe figures out what she wants to do, a job coach at Westchester ARC will help find her a permanent job in a local business, then train her once she gets there.
ARC sells its work force using four arguments - job satisfaction, company image, diversity and cost, said Thomas Hughes, Westchester ARC's associate executive director.
For example, suppose an office has several highly paid administrative assistants doing their own shredding and copying.
A job coach might suggest that one of Westchester ARC's workers could do the shredding and copying at a lower price, a technique called "job carving." This substitution will probably create greater job satisfaction for everyone at the workplace, Hughes said.
Most people with disabilities feel tremendously proud to be working in a mainstream workplace, he said, generally stay in positions longer and are absent less often. Hughes added that employers also choose to hire ARC's clients because it improves the company's public image and demonstrates that it has a diversified work force.
The approach works. Westchester ARC has placed about 200 clients in jobs with local businesses - nearly 50 people in the past year alone.
ARC also helps students get jobs through a resume-writing and job-skills class, which Troupe said taught her a lot. "Don't go late to work and always be on time. Dress to success - meaning you can't go to work looking all sloppy," she said.
While the program helps people find jobs, it does something even more important.
It helps them find themselves, said Adrienne Troupe, Natalie's mother. "She just ended up being independent and liking to be her own person, which makes a big, big difference."
Glossary
Mainstreaming: Integration of people with special needs into community schools, workplaces, recreational activities and neighborhoods.
Developmental disabilities: A range of neurological disorders, including mental retardation, autism, Down syndrome and cerebral palsy.
Sheltered workshop: A workplace created for people with disabilities. The work is often of a repetitive nature, such as factory work or stuffing envelopes.
Competitive-community-individualized employment: Jobs held by people with disabilities in mainstream workplaces.
Work crew: A mix of individualized and workshop employment models in which a team of people with disabilities works in a mainstream workplace as a group, usually under the supervision of an agency employee, rather than as employees of the mainstream workplace.
Person-centered planning: Helping developmentally disabled people pick individually appropriate career paths.