Archive for the ‘Employment’ Category
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Jobs West Open House
Last Wednesday, Delia from Jobs West invited me to their Open House. The event was a great way for families to meet one another and to also chat with the staff. It was also a great opportunity for people who were unfamiliar with the program to ask more questions. The turnout was much better than anticipated, and the office space was soon filled with families and clients of the Jobs West program. I must admit, the space was much nicer than I had originally expected. The employment specialists, Delia, Aishah, Leah and Ron were super friendly and you could tell they interacted extremely well with the current clients. I had a chance to talk to many of the current employers who work with Jobs West and they had nothing but praises about the job placements that have been made!
If you’d like to learn more about Jobs West or if you’re an employer interested in the program, please visit www.jobswestdda.ca!
Jobs West is the supported employment division of the Developmental Disabilities Association. Jobs West assists adults with developmental disabilities to prepare for, find and keep community based work placements. Jobs West is primarily funded by Community Living B.C.
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Disneyland Vacation
Like the many of you, I have been enjoying the Summer, and I’ve just come back from my vacation! I know the people at Holiday Options have already been having a great time at vacation this year!You might be thinking what does your vacation have to do with the DDA community? Well, I’m getting to that. I went to Disneyland last week, and it proved itself to indeed be the happiest place on earth. Not only were there thousands of smiling faces, there was also a culturally diverse crowd. What stood out most for me was how accessible they made most of their rides and buildings for people with disabilities. In addition to that, they had very inclusive hiring of employees as they employed many people with developmental disabilities, and also employed those who required wheelchair assistance. Now, this may not sound like a big feat, but for a theme park, a world famous one at that, it warms my heart to see just how they are trying to include everyone so that everyone may enjoy their time equally!
Their commitment to hiring people with developmental disabilities and people from all walks of life reminds me of the employers at Jobs West who are also very willing to support this endeavor.
I hope to see more and more employers hiring inclusively and equally so that everyone may reach their full potential.
For more information about Jobs West and Holiday Options, please visit www.develop.bc.ca!
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The Price for Customized Employment
This is a special guest blog post by our Executive Director, Alanna Hendren.
I felt like a real reporter the other day when I received a “brown envelope” in the mail with no return address or identifying material inside. Whoever sent it had taken some time to analyze a recent report published about Community Living BC’s (CLBC) Customized Employment Initiative and was outraged over the high costs of finding work for individuals who had been placed in customized employment. He or she had calculated the cost to be over $58,000 per placement.
He or she was relatively correct in his or her facts and I could understand the disappointment over the high costs for CLBC’s customized employment placements. However, DDA’s employment placement costs are zero to government or CLBC for the 46 people who would otherwise be clients but now work at Starworks Packaging Assembly for minimum wage or better. Starworks, is a social enterprise of the DDA’s that hires people with developmental disabilities to perform light manual labour work at competitive prices.
Jobs West on the other hand, is DDA’s work placement program that costs about $6,700 per person. This cost includes discovery, employment readiness training, work experience, volunteering, and work placement. Over the past two years, 36 people successfully got jobs with community employers. DDA also operates a pre-employment skills training program for 6 people that is consistent with the objectives of the Customized Employment Initiative. This costs DDA $60,000 per year but the funding does not come from the government or CLBC – we earn it.
With the downturn in the economy and anticipated budget cuts looming, one would assume governments will not have the money much longer to spend on projects that have high costs and minimum benefits or returns. At that time they may start rewarding agencies who provide the best services for the lowest amount of funding, but that has not been the case over the past decade or so. Very soon we will also have to accept that government no longer provides enough funding to adequately address community need in any area because they really will have no money. This reality is most grim for Vancouver, because our region has been historically under-funded in favor of other regions.
If agencies view themselves as servants to the community – as charities – they will step up and find ways to support as many people as possible through creating efficiencies or investing in social enterprises. If agencies continue to view themselves as servants to the government, community support will remain as political and limited as declining government funding will allow.
Message to brown envelope person: Next time, have the courage to sign your name!
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CDS Graduation Ceremony
As the first associations in Canada to take part in the College of Direct Support (CDS), here at the Developmental Disabilities Association (DDA), we pride ourselves in keeping our staff well-informed, and well-trained. We pay for all CDS expenses on behalf of our workers so that they may better their education as care professionals. DDA is always happy to help our staff get further education.On Friday, November 20, 2009, it was a joyous day for our residential care professionals! 15 of our residential care professionals graduated from the CDS. They are now all certified direct support professionals.
It was both a happy and emotional day, where they also acknowledged Tasia Alexis, our Assistant Director, for teaching material from the CDS. Congratulations, everyone!
For more information on residential care, residential job opportunities, and the rest of DDA, visit www.develop.bc.ca!
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General Orientation (GO)
This morning we had 19 new employees attend GO – our General Orientation to the Association. They are paid for this four hour introduction to the organization. We bring in speakers from the departments that they will be working for, who explain what staff in those departments do, as well as who the clients they work with are.
The attendees are newly hired employees from different parts of the organization – Residential Services, Community Services, Child and Youth Services, and our Business Centre. We have a PowerPoint slide show, with narrators from the departments.
We put on the orientations because we are a large organization (600 employees) spread across many sites (50), and we feel it is important that employees understand what the other parts of the organization do, not just their own site.
We also talk about the Association’s mission and values, our history, the fact we are a non-profit organization, and who we are responsible to. In addition, we explain our health and safety program, explain standard precautions that are to be followed at all times, that the Association does not tolerate harassment of any kind, and how we resolve conflicts.
We usually have two additional speakers: a Staff Representative from our union, the BCGEU, and a self-advocate. The Staff Representative talks about the collective agreement in place here, what the union can help them with, and how to make a complaint to the union if they feel they are not being treated fairly. The self-advocate (one of our clients) talks about themselves, what services of ours they use, and whether they feel these are good services.
We also have goody bags that contain DDA newsletters and brochures, as well as DDA branded products such as lanyards, frisbees, pens, fridge magnets, keychain lights, and a lapel pin. Opening the bags is probably the most fun part of the meeting!
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