"See the ability. See how we can work together."
On one of my regular meanders through the farthest reaches of the information superhighway in search of disability-related websites, I came across .
Here, according to the page, is what Connect-Ability is/does.
βConnect-Ability began in late 2005 with a federal grant to the State of Connecticut to identify and remove barriers to employment faced by people with disabilities. This five-year, multimillion dollar systems change grant involved a detailed look at the State's employment and disability services infrastructure in order to identify problem areas and implement lasting solutions.
Connect-Ability has two primary customers:
* Employers of all sizes and in all industries who are seeking qualified workers
* People with disabilities of all ages who are seeking employment for the first time or who want a new challenge.
Our program does not directly provide services to match individuals with specific jobs. Instead, our efforts are targeted at removing the barriers which keep our primary customers from finding one another. These barriers include, but are not limited to, low expectations, the transition from school to work, inadequate transportation, and the actual process of recruitment, hiring, and retention.β
I fully expected the site to be patronising and mushy. But it's not. Granted, itβs possibly a little saccharine for British tastes but, then, itβs not been designed for a British audience.
The four (soon to be six) videos of the featured working disabled people are cleverly scripted so as to be up-front about the fact that they have impairments, and what those impairments are, whilst simultaneously leaving absolutely no doubt that they are all very effective in their chosen careers.
βA person who protects the countryβs data (who canβt hear)β is very different from βa person tragically-afflicted by hearing-loss to whom some remarkably philanthropic business has been charitable enough to give employmentβ.
And, whilst this concept may not be rocket-science to you and me, there are some people β on both sides of the equation β on whom itβs going to have an unanticipated and very powerful impact. These are just people doing jobs: their impairments are largely irrelevant to their professional success. Youβd have to be very firmly wedded to the tragedy model of disability indeed to respond to any of those videos by saying, βOh, bless them! Arenβt they brave?β
But itβs not all about the videos by any means. Thereβs a lot of information on the site. Information about the process of getting a job; about how you might travel to and from your place of work; information for employers about a) why they would want to employ disabled people and b) the best way to attract applications from them; and pages for young disabled people who are just leaving school or college, with corresponding advice for their parents. This stuff has been very professionally and thoughtfully put together, and is well worth a read, regardless of where youβre based. (Although do bear in mind that the detailed information about employment law is based on the ADA rather than the DDA: there isnβt a direct read-across from one set of legal provisions to the other.)
Iβve been working in the disability and employment field a long time. It takes a lot to impress me. Iβm seriously impressed by Connect-Ability.
β’ Visit
Comments
I live in Connecticut and I hadn't even heard about this. I'm going to pass it on to the people I know!
To be fair, the site's been up and running for less than two weeks.
But I'm really pleased to have brought it to the attention of some of the people it's intended to serve!
Connect-ability rocks!
And it just goes to show that, despite the fact that we are two nations divided by a common language, particularly where the philosophy of what it means to be disabled is concerned (see practically any post from our Ouch guest bloggers from across the pond for detailed evidence), ultimately it's not the way you say it but what you actually do which counts.
All this nonsense about the social and medical models being able to co-exist is a real distraction when, if you have understood them properly they plainly cannot. And βdisability prideβ is just too bizarre for words if you do accept the social model. However, itβs how we choose to live our lives, how we regard ourselves and how we treat others which really matters. And it is possible to get that right, or indeed very wrong, regardless of which side of the Atlantic we inhabit, the prevailing culture of our society or the words we use.
As the project director for the Connect-Ability initiative, I want to thank you for your comments and your support. We have an incredible team here in Connecticut that is working to build this site and make it useful for job seekers with disabilities, and I've shared your postings with them.
If you have feedback about how we can make the site stronger, please don't hesitate to send it through our site. We are thrilled to have partners on both sides of the pond!