The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
For those with disabilities, more jobs but scarcer funding
Outside of the family businesses dotting Connecticut and the nation that go back a generation or more, a slim percentage of companies today that are led by executives who came on board as teenagers and never left.
Count Jane Davis in that select company — and the Bethel nonprofit she leads has plenty of recruits to offer other employers who are willing to work a lifetime. Ability Beyond extends that message both across Connecticut and far beyond its borders for employers from coast to coast.
In midOctober in recognition of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, Ability Beyond coordinated “take your legislator to work day” visits across the region, with participants including state Sen. Will Haskell and Danburyarea representatives Raghib AllieBrennan, David Arconti, Mitch Bolinsky, Kenneth Gucker, Steve Harding and J.P. Sredzinski.
Connecticut now has a voice in Congress in U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes whose early career gave her insights into the challenges facing people with disabilities in getting rewarding employment, with Hayes having worked at the Southbury Training School helping others land jobs and expand on their skills in those positions.
It is a goal that Ability Beyond delivers for some 3,000
people annually, with Davis leading a staff that fluctuates from 1,100 to 1,200 people at any point during the year. It is the second largest such agency in Connecticut after Oak Hill in Hartford.
In addition to its Bethel headquarters, Ability Beyond has satellite offices today on East Avenue in Norwalk, in Plainville and in Chappaqua, N.Y., at the Chappaqua Crossing redevelopment of the former Reader’s Digest campus.
“Our job is to help people figure out what they want to do — what resonates with them, what their skills are, what skills they need to brush up on — and help them get settled with the job of their dreams,” Davis told Hearst Connecticut Media. “At any given time, our team is working with about 30 people doing that and partnering with local employers and ... showing great retention rates, and great experiences for the employer.”
The past several years, Ability Beyond has expanded its work to corporations that operate nationally, with Purchase, N.Y.based PepsiCo and Stamfordbased Synchrony Financial among its clients.
‘They’re not going to let you down’
With about 40 percent of adults with disabilities holding jobs, Connecticut ranks 20th nationally and slightly ahead of the U.S. average of 37 percent, as calculated by the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire. North Dakota led the nation with 56 percent of its population with disabilities employed last year, with Vermont tops in the Northeast at 47 percent.
Connecticut employers added nearly 1,400 workers with disabilities to their payrolls last year for nearly a 2 percent increase, UNH researchers determined, slightly ahead of the U.S. gain but trailing Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and New York.
National Disability Employment Awareness Month has its antecedents in a 1945 Congressional declaration marking the first week in October as “National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week.” Ability Beyond would get its start eight years later in a Danbury basement, after a group of families decided to band together to seek out improved services.
Ability Beyond and other area agencies place individuals in a wide range of settings from small restaurants to offices and facilities run by large corporations. Workers with autism spectrum disorders and other development disabilities or mental health issues learn tasks and become valued contributors.
Chenelle James, an employment specialist with Ability Beyond who lives in Bridgeport, said there is no typical day on her job, given the varying needs of people she helps to find appealing jobs, get hired and trained up. She said that while some of her clients require ongoing job coaching, more often than not those individuals get up to speed on the job requirements in short order, often on the first day, as was the case this month in getting a new worker ensconced at a furniture moving company.
“I sat through some of the (orientation) to see what some of the tasks would be,” James said. “When I saw that he was comfortable, that’s when I faded out a little bit.
“I stay in touch with his manager. As far as the tasks, he does great — I never have to intervene on that front, but in certain things communicationswise, he still needs assistance.”
But she said she is impressed with some of the jobs Ability Beyond clients are able to master, noting one she recently placed in the kitchen of a Maplewood Senior Living assisted living center handling dishwashing duties, with James saying she would find it challenging herself to keep up with the volume of dishes the kitchen produces at meal times.
Maplewood’s Danbury facility hosted Arconti this past week, with Danbury’s Mill Plain Diner, Newtown’s Nunnawauk Meadows, Redding Town Hall and Sodexho at Western Connecticut State University among the employers to host legislator visits.
Ability Beyond is now several years into augmenting its local services with a national consulting arm to help large corporations hire people with disabilities, providing the nonprofit with an additional revenue stream.
“The people who we serve (represent) an enormous talent pool, and really the last frontier for inclusion,” Davis said. “What (employers) generally find is ... an amazing experience with better retention. Sometimes the people we serve are walking to work in a snowstorm — they’re not going to let you down. It’s an amazing boost for your work culture.”
That pool could expand as school systems learn to better diagnose children at early ages with learning disabilities in an effort to tailor programs to help them thrive. Davis and Ability Beyond’s head of development Thomas Fanning have been working to expand the nonprofit’s revenue sources beyond Medicaid in an effort to keep up, including the Disabilities Solutions consulting practice.
“Part of the reason (society’s) focus on employment is because it’s such a social determinant for health, for success (and) for happiness,” Davis said. “It’s probably the impactful, meaningful thing that we can do (for) a person with a disability in their life, after they leave the school system ... and get prepared for adult life.”