Phoenix combats unemplyoment for people with disabilties

Living independently, having a career, and possibly starting a family are all hallmarks of what would traditionally be considered a successful adult. However, many individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities still face barriers when it comes to finding employment and living independently.

According to the Arizona Developmental Disabilities Planning Council, disability and employment rates are highly interconnected. People with disabilities are less likely to be employed and more likely to live in poverty. In the state of Arizona, only 26.3% of people with cognitive disabilities are employed. The ADDPC found that people with cognitive disabilities are the least likely to be employed.

Many experts agree that employment is extremely important for those with disabilities. According to the National Association of County Behavioral Health & Developmental Disability Directors, employment can bring “a sense of purpose and self-worth.” One of the main issues is a lack of access to career training. Luckily, the Phoenix area does have options for those with these types of conditions who are looking to start a career.

There are organizations that work with people with these types of disabilities to help them find employment, such as Best Buddies. According to their website, Best Buddies is a worldwide, nonprofit organization that works to end the “social, physical and economical isolation of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

According to Sandra Lizik, the employee consultant of Best Buddies, hiring individuals with these types of disabilities boosts employee morale and customer satisfaction. They are less likely to be absent from work and have lower turnover rates than employees without disabilities. These employees also promote a more diverse work environment overall.

Many large corporations including Starbucks, FedEx, Trader Joe’s and Pfizer work with Best Buddies to train and hire employees with disabilities. These corporations span across different areas including food service, retail, educational, and medical, defying stereotypes of the types of careers that people with disabilities can hold.

“People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are just like all of us where we want a purpose in our life. I think far too often people with IDD’s are considered either incapable of working,” Lizik said. “And now study after study shows that when you discover somebody’s strength, they can perform these jobs. As long as we provide support to get over the hurdle of getting the job, we find our placements to be quite successful.”

Local businesses are also working to provide employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Not Your Typical Deli, for example, is a restaurant in Gilbert, Arizona that works with individuals with developmental disabilities. Their mission, according to their website is to provide adults with developmental disabilities training to help make them suitable candidates to work in the restaurant industry. Their website says that the unemployment rate for adults with autism in Arizona is 90%, a figure that the business hopes to help diminish.

“I took basic restaurant and health department training and rewrote them to fit training levels of my students,” said W Rieth, the executive chef of Not Your Typical Deli, “It’s really based off of soft skills, which are the number one thing that’s lacking in a lot of the lives of people I train.”

He said that a lot of his employees needed to learn basic life skills, such as hygiene. These skills may not come as naturally to individuals with developmental disabilities.

“Really, it’s all the life skills that they may have been taught, but it didn’t click. It’s really a bunch of basics. Once they have that foundation they can start growing with the actual restaurant training.”

Many employers may be hesitant to hire individuals with disabilities due to the differences that they present. However, many of these experts agree that once they receive training that is tailored to their needs, they can make excellent employees who are hard workers and contribute to a positive work atmosphere.