Ensuring People with Disabilities to Have Equality

Dear Friends,

I cannot thank you enough for your earlier support! I’d like to update you on key progress for people with disabilities that YOU helped make possible! Keep in mind that fighting stigmas and advancing opportunities is not an overnight project. Still, major foundations are being laid. Since February we have achieved the following:

• Increased employment for people with disabilities by identifying and promoting best practices for inclusive employment to all 50 state teams working on state unified/combined plans for implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Last summer, the federal government started to distribute $17 billion a year through WIOA to all 50 states to increase employment and job training opportunities. By educating government and workforce personnel working on employment creation programs about the disability issue, as well as effective ways to include people with disabilities (PwDs) in the workforce, we are expanding job opportunities for people with disabilities. To see our suggestions please go here: http://respectabilityusa.com/resources/for-policy-makers. We are pleased to report that the labor force participation rate (a fancy way of saying rate of jobs) for working-age people with disabilities has increased to 31 percent. Frankly, this is still a terrible number, but at least finally we are seeing consecutive months of employment growth for Americans with disabilities. This is a sign that the systems change efforts we are working on have started to have an effect. At the same time, however, much work still needs to be done. There is still a 45.5 percentage point gap in the labor force participation rates between people with and without disabilities. If we can expand our work, we can work to dramatically improve this situation. We recently attended the National Governors Association conference, where we had high-level meetings with 15 governors and their staff. Fellows documented the meetings, and those pieces were published on www.TheRespectAbilityReport.org.

• Raised public awareness of the abilities of people with disabilities (PwDs) through earned and paid media and constant promotion of positive images and stories that counter negative stereotypes. Our work includes identification of messaging and images that change perceptions, publication of articles and op-eds in national and local newspapers by well-known thought-leaders, and through helping to champion A&E’s reality show Born this Way, which won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Unstructured Reality Series. This is the first time ever that a series starring a cast with disabilities has won an Emmy Award. The show just started its third season and has begun global syndication. RespectAbility has been involved in this show since the beginning, and a key part of it is to showcase people with disabilities who are in competitive integrated employment or who are becoming successful entrepreneurs. Indeed, (spoiler alert!) you will even see us in an upcoming episode!

• Started building Communities of Practice in Hollywood and Long Beach. Moving forward, we aim to decrease stigma by organizing Communities of Practice in Long Beach, CA and in Hollywood. These communities involve stakeholders who care about people with disabilities (PwDs) – workforce organizations, employers, philanthropists, the media, Hollywood, the faith community, the healthcare industry and more. Working together, communities will work towards supporting PwDs in their local areas by increasing employment opportunities and access to opportunity and by decreasing stigma in the workforce and entertainment industry. In February we collaborated with Rep. Brad Sherman to host a tripartite event in California on inclusive philanthropy, the entertainment industry and workforce development. Each session was composed of local leaders who want to fight stigmas and advance opportunities for people with disabilities. The event was the beginning of conversations with leaders in philanthropy, entertainment and workforce around including people with disabilities in their work. This will serve as a model program for future Community of Practice initiatives. Our California contacts included more than 260 Hollywood leaders, 110 workforce contacts, and many self-advocates. Fully 125 leaders and activists attended the Hollywood and workforce sessions. In Long Beach specifically, we are just now starting to bring together stakeholders in order to enable people with disabilities in Long Beach to gain education, training and employment, while local employers will gain and retain talented workers.

• Gained traction in terms of encouraging major philanthropists to think about adding disability to their work. With our encouragement and involvement and that of others, Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, is making sweeping and very positive changes to include disability in their work. The news made it into the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The breakthrough of the Ford Foundation could be a game changer for the disability community. It is one of the first major anti-poverty foundations to think about disability.

• Expansion of our National Leadership Program to bring in more talented young leaders into the disability space. This program is for people with and without disabilities who are interested in careers in public policy, communications, media, faith-based inclusion, fundraising and the nonprofit sector. Since being founded in 2013, RespectAbility has had several dozen fellows go into employment and higher education. Excitingly, we now have several paid fellows, and a new fellowship director! This summer, we will have 15 amazing young leaders in the fellowship. This is the largest and most diverse cohort ever.

We are hard at work continuing and expanding these projects. However, it is worth noting that RespectAbility still is hampered by the fact that we are understaffed and under-resourced. We are eagerly reaching out to make new relationships with potential funders. We are deeply grateful for your earlier investment in our work. Please email me at jenniferm@respectabilityusa.org with any questions or comments that you may have. Thanks for your investment in our work – and for the other amazing work you are doing on so many fronts!

I hope that you will continue to invest in the ground-breaking work. Thank you for joining with us in creating a better future for people with disabilities!

Links:

• Check us out RespectAbility!