Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Employment Choices
A friend just forwarded some messages about employment for clients that got me all riled up... again. They were about the debate over "All clients want to work and therefore should be placed in competitive employment" vs. ""Some clients want to work, and some like and benefit from day programs".
Here was my response...
First of all, I agree with the person who asked (basically), "How in the hell do you know that ALL clients want to work?"
I am almost 62, I just got laid off from my job of 14 years with the same agency and I don't want to work. I may HAVE to work... but I sure don't WANT to anymore. I do not believe that ALL non-disabled people want to work. Why would I believe that ALL people with disabilities want to?
We had a client in my day program who obviously liked attending our program because he eagerly got up every morning and was ready for his ride to program. He had a number of behavioral issues that required him to need 1:1 support. For instance, he liked going into people's yards in the community without permission and stripping branches off of their trees, which he then manipulated for a while before discarding them. We were teaching him about respecting other people's property, and looking for "beware of dog" signs and things like that. His case manager from the Regional Center came in to meet him one day, and after about 10 minutes announced to our staff that we should get him a "job" stripping the bark off of willow branches and have him bundle them up to sell to crafters.
OK, then...
And I hate this notion of not asking a client what kind of job they want, but just see what they like to do and then make up a "job" for them doing that task. There's some normalization for you.
Most of our clients liked participating in our confidential document disposal business. They liked sitting in a nice, clean, warm, cosy office sorting and/or shredding paper. When we became a 100% community based program and a local businessman asked if our clients could work at his document disposal business, we jumped at the chance... and had a total of 2 clients who would work there because it was in a warehouse that was cold in the winter, and dusty and noisy all the time.
We put probably 12 people out of work this way. But hey, we were community based!
I, frankly, have no problem with having clients work in a facility based work program. We were providing a needed service to our community and the clients could/would participate in much larger numbers than in "competitive employment in the community". I also have no problem paying them a commensurate wage.
Funny thing... the clients didn't mind it either!
It sure let more people be contributing members of the community.
And I will never understand why forcing a client into a "job" is more important than teaching them some needed social and daily living skills first in a traditional day program anyway. But then, I'm an old guy and it's hard to teach us new tricks.
I suspect that some of this working attitude comes from the fact that many day programs around the country don't provide the necessary staff training and the tools staff needs to keep clients engaged in meaningful and interesting activities during the day, so they become "daycare" instead of a "day program" . Well-meaning officials then visit the program and see clients sitting sleepily at tables all day and conclude that the agency - or even the whole system - is "bad" and needs to be changed.
Boy, if we could only focus some of that zeal into person centered thinking instead of deciding on our own what is "best" for everyone...
The reason I use the label "client" instead of "consumer" is that we talked to the people in our program about labels and asked which they preferred. It was unanimous for "client", so that's what I use. Clients were also pretty clear about their feelings about working when we made them choose between facility based or community based employment, too... oh, wait, we didn't give them a choice... we just changed the program and said, "Work there or don't work."
Sorry, I didn't mean to write a book. Oh, wait... I DID write a book. Ha!
John
Here was my response...
First of all, I agree with the person who asked (basically), "How in the hell do you know that ALL clients want to work?"
I am almost 62, I just got laid off from my job of 14 years with the same agency and I don't want to work. I may HAVE to work... but I sure don't WANT to anymore. I do not believe that ALL non-disabled people want to work. Why would I believe that ALL people with disabilities want to?
We had a client in my day program who obviously liked attending our program because he eagerly got up every morning and was ready for his ride to program. He had a number of behavioral issues that required him to need 1:1 support. For instance, he liked going into people's yards in the community without permission and stripping branches off of their trees, which he then manipulated for a while before discarding them. We were teaching him about respecting other people's property, and looking for "beware of dog" signs and things like that. His case manager from the Regional Center came in to meet him one day, and after about 10 minutes announced to our staff that we should get him a "job" stripping the bark off of willow branches and have him bundle them up to sell to crafters.
OK, then...
And I hate this notion of not asking a client what kind of job they want, but just see what they like to do and then make up a "job" for them doing that task. There's some normalization for you.
Most of our clients liked participating in our confidential document disposal business. They liked sitting in a nice, clean, warm, cosy office sorting and/or shredding paper. When we became a 100% community based program and a local businessman asked if our clients could work at his document disposal business, we jumped at the chance... and had a total of 2 clients who would work there because it was in a warehouse that was cold in the winter, and dusty and noisy all the time.
We put probably 12 people out of work this way. But hey, we were community based!
I, frankly, have no problem with having clients work in a facility based work program. We were providing a needed service to our community and the clients could/would participate in much larger numbers than in "competitive employment in the community". I also have no problem paying them a commensurate wage.
Funny thing... the clients didn't mind it either!
It sure let more people be contributing members of the community.
And I will never understand why forcing a client into a "job" is more important than teaching them some needed social and daily living skills first in a traditional day program anyway. But then, I'm an old guy and it's hard to teach us new tricks.
I suspect that some of this working attitude comes from the fact that many day programs around the country don't provide the necessary staff training and the tools staff needs to keep clients engaged in meaningful and interesting activities during the day, so they become "daycare" instead of a "day program" . Well-meaning officials then visit the program and see clients sitting sleepily at tables all day and conclude that the agency - or even the whole system - is "bad" and needs to be changed.
Boy, if we could only focus some of that zeal into person centered thinking instead of deciding on our own what is "best" for everyone...
The reason I use the label "client" instead of "consumer" is that we talked to the people in our program about labels and asked which they preferred. It was unanimous for "client", so that's what I use. Clients were also pretty clear about their feelings about working when we made them choose between facility based or community based employment, too... oh, wait, we didn't give them a choice... we just changed the program and said, "Work there or don't work."
Sorry, I didn't mean to write a book. Oh, wait... I DID write a book. Ha!
John
# posted by John @ 1:28 PM 
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Hi John! I know I am reading this months later, but I just had to comment on your use of "clients." Bravo! I hate the term consumer. It sounds like the person is at Walmart. I had worked for Nebraska's D.D. system for about 25 years before a brief foray into working in the mental health system. Now I find I myself unemployed and wondering--go back to DD? Stick with mental health? In Nebraska, the two services don't overlap. I know. Weird. You are either one or the other. Heaven help the people who are both!!
Deb
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Deb
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