Improving Minnesota’s
vocational and independent living services for individuals with
disabilities is the topic of a forum set for Wednesday, September
24 in St. Cloud. The Statewide Independent Living Council (SILC),
the Minnesota State Rehabilitation Council (SRC) and the Minnesota
Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) are hosting
the forum.
“Hearing from the public about unmet needs and ideas for improving
services for Minnesotans with disabilities is absolutely essential
for the councils and the state to carry out their work,” said
Kim Peck, director of DEED’s Rehabilitation Services (RS) and
a member of the SILC and SRC councils.
The forum is 9 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m., and the public is welcome at any time during the
day. From 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. a panel will discuss four recent projects
where DEED and RS have teamed up with Minne-sota’s
Centers for Independent Living to improve and expand services for
the disability community.
Anyone may testify in
the afternoon. The schedule includes an opportunity to respond
to the morning discussion from 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. and an open forum
from 1:15 to 4:30 p.m. The public is encouraged to speak out about
their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with Minnesota’s
independent living and employment services for our community.
Registration is not required to attend. The forum will be held at
the Radisson Suite Hotel, 404 West St. Germain St., St Cloud, MN 56301.
Please contact Gail Lundeen from DEED Rehabilitative Services at 1-800-328-9095,
651-259-7364, or TTY at 1-800-657-3973 if you have questions or requests
for accommodations. Real-time captioning and sign language interpreters
will be available.
A forum this summer dealt with important vocational rehabilitation
issues. A large crowd attended a state forum about employment services
for people with disabilities at Golden Valley City Hall on June 25.
The forum was hosted by the Minnesota State Rehabilitation Council
(MSRC), DEED and the Golden Valley Human Rights Commission. The topics
covered were employment disability discrimination, unmet needs for
disability related employment services, and public satisfaction with
the state services.
“At least 175,000 Minnesotans of working age experience significant
difficulty finding or keeping employment due to long-lasting disabilities,” said
Peck. Rehabilitation Services (RS) helps Minnesotans with disabilities
to prepare for, find, or keep work. The MSRC advises the state on
the performance of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) programs.
Many people testified, including vocational clients, experts and service
providers. The issues they raised are wide-ranging and complex yet
may only represent a fraction of the challenges the state faces in
trying to provide services.
Carl Sauers, who is deaf, talked about his vocational experiences.
Sauers has worked as a tool maker for 27 years. He praised his former
employer DataCard Corp for accommodating his disability by hiring interpreters
for meetings. Unfortunately, Sauers was recently laid off due to the
slow economy. He described his current job search as very difficult
due to what he perceives as disability discrimination.
Robyn McCree, who is
also deaf, encouraged Vocational Rehab Services and the public
libraries to install a VRI-VP system “so deaf
people can have access to communicating with employers while looking
for work.” The VRI-VP is a phone system that uses video enhanced
communication with a sign language interpreter to facilitate communication
between a deaf person and the hearing community. McCree explained
that having the special phone system at home would cost about $200
per month, which is too expensive for a job seeker on a limited income.
Paul Deeming works as a case manager for Deaf Blind Services MN. He
testified regarding the need for in-depth training on job-seeking skills.
In his experience clients are often lacking knowledge about how to
find work. He believes that this is a deficit in the system.
Don Lavin testified
on behalf of the Minnesota Employment First Coalition, a change
advocacy organization seeking to make integrative employment at
competitive wages and benefits the first option for Minnesotans
with disabilities. Lavin pointed out that there are too many people
with disabilities in Minnesota who are not working, underemployed
or working for sub-minimum wages. Also, too many employers don’t
know how to hire or support workers with disabilities.
Lavin declared that
while he is often critical of state agencies, “I
want to publicly acknowledge and applaud the measurable progress made
by Minnesota Rehabilitation Services.” Lavin pointed to a giant
step forward. “We are pleased Minnesota RS has recently created
a task force to examine better ways to deliver employment services
to Minnesotans who are deaf or hard of hearing,” he said.
Lavin also proposed
a statewide marketing campaign to bring business leaders into a
partnership with VR Services. He pointed out that Minnesota has
untapped labor resources in the disability community. In addition,
Lavin stressed emphasizing people’s strengths
and abilities, not their disabilities.
Kimberly Peck summed
up the purpose of holding these forums with these thoughts: One
of the challenges with VR, or any program, is that making a shift
to do things differently requires the willingness to take a step
back and say—how
well do our current practices serve us and serve our customers? ![end of story]()
