Photo By Scott Sturkol | Jason Glozier, Disability Rights and Services Program specialist with the Madison...... read more read more
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Much can be done to help people with disabilities find opportunities and employment if employers focus on what people can do instead of what they can’t do.
That was the message of the National Disability Employment Awareness Month observance, held Oct. 18 at McCoy’s Community Center.
The guest speaker was Jason Glozier, disability rights and service coordinator for the Madison, Wis., Department of Civil Rights. Glozier's background includes nearly two decades of working in disability rights with organizations such as Adapt, Not Dead Yet, and the Wisconsin Board for
People with Developmental Disabilities.
“My role as a disability advocate is to use it to create opportunities to succeed; to give others the opportunity to share their gifts with the community; and remind people that, despite our differences, we all have something to contribute,” Glozier said.
While Glozier does not have a disability himself, his younger brother was born with cerebral palsy. Watching the struggles his brother went through and seeing the differences in the opportunities he had versus the ones his brother had was what inspired Glozier to choose his career.
“I wanted to use my privilege to make others’ lives a little bit better because I had that power,” he said.
Glozier said that when his brother was born, his parents were given a handful of brochures for places that could take care of his brother. They were told, “You have a healthy child at home. Go home. Invest your dreams in him.”
“I was seen as somebody who could be successful. He was seen as somebody who was a burden.
Glozier said it took six months of meetings, a team of lawyers, and the sheriff’s department to get his brother into a kindergarten class.
“This is what people with disabilities face every day,” Glozier said.
About 12 percent of the disabled population works compared to about 86 percent of the nondisabled population, Glozier said. This percentage may not be reflected in general unemployment numbers, which measure what percentage of people who are actively seeking work have found it.
Some people with disabilities may not be able to work, but others simply have a hard time getting the proper training or finding employers or positions that accommodate their needs, whether it’s special equipment, flexible schedules, or something different.
“If you meet someone who does 100 percent of their job all the time, I’d like to meet them because it’s something I’ve yet to find,” Glozier said. “However, this is what we apply to the disability community: the ability to do 100 percent of your job all the time.”
One of the first steps to helping people with disabilities find employment is to examine job descriptions and see how important the “requirements” really are. If something isn’t a major part of a job, could it be traded for another task within an office or could some other alternative be arranged?
“If someone doesn’t believe they can do a job, they simply aren’t going to apply for it,” Glozier said. “They’ve been denied opportunity for so long that they’ve given up trying.”
Helping a person with a disability focus on what he or she can contribute to an employer is much more helpful that focusing on what he or she can’t do, he said.
“Valuing the contributions of all the members of our community is what America is about,” Glozier said. “We need to look at creating opportunity, whether it’s as an employer or whether it’s as an employee. And we need to be innovative about the way we look at work and the way we examine what people contribute to our workforce.”
The observance was organized by the Army Reserve Equal Employment Office (EEO) at Fort McCoy. For more information about EEO, call 608-388-3106.
| Date Taken: | 10.26.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 10.26.2018 17:28 |
| Story ID: | 297934 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WI, US |
| Web Views: | 126 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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