Helping hand for disabled people

Employers who emphasise ability rather than disability get loyal staff, reports ANGELA McCARTHY.

Ever cringed watching someone talking too loudly to a person in a wheelchair - who isn't deaf - or approaching someone with a speech impediment as if they're missing a brain?

Now consider the odds for people with disabilities when looking for employment.

Ignorance is still an enormous barrier for people with disabilities hunting jobs, says Workbridge northern operations manager Pam Findlay.

When Workbridge, an agency designed to help people with disabilities into employment, was set up in 1990 it was given a 10-year sunset clause.

"But we're nowhere near that happening. I'd say we're another generation away, at least", says Findlay.

People with disability are over-represented in the jobless statistics, but she says it's hard to pick an exact figure because many people keep their disability hidden.

However, Findlay, who has been with Workbridge for 11 years, says employers' attitudes are improving.

"There are more visual disabilities at management level now. That and the mainstreaming of children with disabilities in schools is helping people get used to being around people with disabilities".

Workbridge, which has 22 centres throughout New Zealand, offers a range of services, including work trials, post-placement support and training for other colleagues on the job.

There are also specific funds, such as training support, that pays toward extra equipment needed to study or train, such as dictaphones, and a job support fund that pays towards workplace modifications such as ramps for wheelchair users.

Many people can only work part-time because of their disability but that makes them no less valuable, says Findlay.

The majority of job-seekers with disabilities are unskilled, but a number who start in entry level positions move into more responsible positions or study and training.

Another organisation working to eliminate the barriers to people with disabilities is Poly-Emp Employment and Advisory Service for tertiary students.

Poly-Emp places students into part or full-time employment. Career plans, developed with the family and Poly-Emp, are an important part of job placement.

Poly-Emp deliberately plays down the emphasis on disability, using the word disABILITY in its marketing.

"We're trying to sell our students' skills and capabilities. We work with people to fulfil their goals, not change them", says employment adviser Darryl Evans.

He says it's quite a job to make employers understand that people with disabilities can achieve. The key to Poly-Emp's service is support, which includes career planning, pre-employment assistance, job search and matching, on-the-job training and workplace advocacy.

Last Saturday, Evans was at a supermarket training a student to pack shelves. The evening before he'd been training a trolley person.

"People with disabilities have the same aspirations as anyone else about earning money and being a valued member of society", he says.

There is also a Job Plus subsidy employers can seek if employing someone for 15 hours or over who is signed up with WINZ and has been unemployed long-term, or who faces substantial barriers to employment.

While a person with a disability might take longer to pick up the skills and knowledge required for a job, Evans says they are thorough and loyal workers once established.

Poly-Emp supports 105 tertiary students with disabilities from Unitec, Manukau Institute of Technology and Auckland University of Technology. The students have a range of disabilities with intellectual disability the most recurrent.

Regan Caisley is one such student. The 25-year-old, who describes himself as a "slow learner," has been working three days a week, six hours a day at Orakei's Natural Habitats Ltd for the past four months. His role is to work in the yard, planting, weeding, watering and tidying.

Poly-Emp found the job after doing a career plan that highlighted Caisley's interest in gardening.

"It is stress-free, the people are friendly, I meet lots of people from the community and I'm outside, which I really like", explains Caisley.

Preparing for the job included transport training; helping him learn to catch the bus from his Te Atatu home to downtown Auckland, then out to Orakei.

Natural Habitats Landscape director Graham Cleary says Caisley has been a pleasure. "As one of the company's aims is to be part of the community and take on social responsibility, we decided to give it a try".

Cleary has a different expectation of output from Caisley, but says supporting him requires little time.

Clayworth Electronics Ltd owner Barrie Clayworth, who manufactures and imports TV aerials, is another employer full of enthusiasm about the half-dozen staff with disabilities he has employed over the past five years. Clayworth trains people on the job, starting them in the stores and production facility, then moving them into sales and customer services. He says the training takes more time but costs little.

"In the job market, it is hard to find people as good as most of the ones I've had here. I find they really want to do something for themselves to better themselves so they are very motivated and keen. It is quite hard to find good employees like that".

* Workbridge (0800) 836-736.

* Poly-Emp Employment and Advisory Service, (09) 815 -4321.