Grant aimed at bringing more disabled people into workforce

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Armed with a $2 million federal Disability Employment Initiative grant, Lacie Worcester and Kyle Williams of the Kansas Department of Commerce are bringing more physically and intellectually disabled people into the workforce.

Worcester, Business Leadership Network administrator, and Williams, coordinator of the Disability Employment Initiative, attended the Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce coffee last week at Bartlesmeyer Jewelry. The gathering was attended by about 45 people.

Worcester said the initiative, aimed at adult workers, seeks employers who don't hire people with disabilities and encourages them to do so. Businesses that hire the disabled will be highlighted to show others what they're doing.

Williams said they will focus on the southeast and south-central Kansas region and work with agencies like Tri-Valley Developmental Services, which serves developmentally disabled people in Allen, Bourbon, Neosho and Woodson counties. Plans are for Williams and Worcester to spend a day with Tri-Valley in February or March.

"Part of what we do is to get with people and organizations who are doing a lot of that work, finding out what barriers they're facing and what everyone can do to help enhance" their efforts, Williams said.

The U.S. Department of Labor grant runs through September 2013, Williams said.

A "good portion" of the funds will go toward the salaries of the five people working on the project. Another portion went to the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation's school for adaptive computer training, which has a campus in Wichita and one on the Pottawatomie Reservation. Williams said the program is meant to help people with various disabilities, not just CP, get training and find a job.

The idea of the DEI grant is to get the disabled back into the state's workforce centers, which provide programs and training tools to help them.

The nearest workforce center to Fort Scott is in Pittsburg, but others are in Chanute, Independence and Paola.

Another goal is for Kansas to become an employment network. "We will be accepting tickets to work," Williams said. People with disabilities can use the tickets at workforce centers for training and resume writing, for example. "Our goal is to reach as many individuals as possible," Williams said.

"...Our hope is to find employers and businesses open to finding people who do one or two things really well. It takes a special business" to fit a job to a person's abilities, rather than the other way around.

Also at the coffee, Janet Braun reminded attendees about the Rotary Club's "Dancing with Our Stars" shows at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. today at the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center on the Fort Scott Community College campus, 2108 S. Horton.

Fort Scott Manor Administrator Lynette Emmerson said the facility will sell balloon bouquets for $10 with proceeds going to the Alzheimer's Walk.

Megan Felt, program director for the Lowell Milken Center, noted footage from the 1930s and '40s has been added to the African-American History of Bourbon County exhibit. On a separate item, Felt said the annual Beacon Soup Line is scheduled for March 29, organized by the Young Professionals League.

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