(soft piano music) - If you're an employer, how do you employ someone who has disabilities?

If your an employee with disabilities, what does a job mean to you?

We'll visit with a unique program in, Uinta County Disability:IN, and we'll get those answers.

Employing folks with disabilities.

Next on Wyoming Chronicle.

(uplifting music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

Thinkwy.org.

And by, the members of the Wyoming PBS foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- And as we begin this Wyoming Chronicle, I'm pleased to be joined by Wanda Rogers and Bethany Scheidler.

Both with Disability:IN here in Uinta County.

To both of you, welcome to Wyoming Chronicle.

- Thank you Craig.

- Thank you - We have lots of things to talk about relative to folks with disabilities and being employed from both the person with disabilities perspective and also the employer's perspective.

There's lots of issues around that topic.

And that's why we're here today.

Bethany, you work specifically with folks who are maybe younger, lots of issues with them.

And Wanda for quite a while here in Uinta County, you have worked with folks that are maybe a little bit older and are placed here in the county.

But I want to start with your history, Wanda, you actually got into this work because of your child.

Tell me about your history with your daughter.

- Well, my sixth child was born with down syndrome and we did not know at that time she would have down syndrome.

Of course it was a shock and you're kind of what am I going to do?

And so I couldn't wait to get my hands on anything and everything to, to read.

And she was involved with the early intervention program and they talked to me about, at that time, it was called the Mega Conference, and it was the biggest conference in Wyoming concerning disabilities.

So they paid for my way to go.

And as I was there, I of course networked with a lot of different people.

And I met other parents and became familiar with the family support network, that was sponsored by the Wyoming governor's Council on Developmental Disabilities.

- This was not your vocation then by any means.

- No, I was a stay at home mom.

I loved being home, and being with my kids, and be a part of that.

But so this opened up a whole new door and career for me.

- And you had to learn about what it meant to be a parent with someone who had a disability.

- Yes, and you know, my husband would keep reminding me, you know, just she's a child, just treat her like a child and, and he was right.

You just kind of treat him like that, but there's differences.

There are things that happen.

I know when I had Alise, the doctor said to me, you take her home and treat her like your other kids.

And so, that's kind of what I looked at is, I'm going to take her home.

She's going to have chores.

She's going to work.

She's going to, you know, know what being a part of a team means.

And so, as a family that's what we worked towards.

- But there came a point where you decided, I need to do more, and this became a vocation for you.

- Yes.

- Tell me about that step.

- Well, totally unexpected, you know, I'm just going to these family support network groups to learn what I can do.

We worked with legislators, we worked on the waiver program and we provided information.

- And that's the Medicaid Waiver Program, that provides support for folks with disabilities.

- Yes, yes, and so I had no clue that someday I would be the executive director of Disability:IN Uinta County.

But, doors started opening up, parents came to me, asked me questions.

And, the school district hired me as a parent coordinator where I worked specifically with the parents.

And I did that for several years, which was a real eye-opener because, I was a parent that had a strong belief, and I was immovable.

And working at the school district, it gave me a different view of how to handle things.

And I can still be a strong advocate for my daughter, but I do it in a kind of a different way.

- You went through struggles.

Like I think many parents may go through today.

About, you want what's best for your daughter.

You want them to be in a classroom.

Others may not agree that it might be the best thing for their kids in a classroom to have maybe, someone with disabilities in the classroom.

How did you deal with those issues?

- Well, you know, my emphasis was, she's an individual and as she, you have a program and then you put all your kids with disabilities in this program.

What is her individual need?

What does she want?

You know, and I once had a teacher, well, we can't let Alise walk down the hallway by herself because what if something happens?

And I says I'll take full responsibility.

And we, we had a real struggle with that.

And I finally said to her, I says, so when she's an adult, are you going to walk down the street with her?

I says, I can't walk down to the street with her.

I says, you know, so no, we need to teach her.

And one thing I did live in, in a small community is I made sure Alise was networked to a lot of people.

So I had eyes all around me.

And, so she didn't need that one on one escort, but she could go about her business in a safe environment.

- Off camera you told me just, just a great story.

And we won't get into all the details now, but, she went through elementary school, went through middle school, was talking about her goals.

And her goal that she articulated was to be married.

And guess what?

- Well, it, we were in an IEP meeting getting ready to kind of that transition.

And, and we had a couple of people just kind of look like, oh, she's not going to get married.

And yes, guess what she is married.

And guess what, those educators did receive invitations to her wedding.

So, we did that, and she is married and her, I mean, she loves being a wife.

She just dotes on her husband.

Any man would love Alise for his wife, cause she dotes on him and she's, she takes it very seriously.

- We'll come back to the work that you do with Disability:IN, in placing folks with disabilities, with employers and how important that is from both perspectives.

But Bethany, let me turn to you for just a minute.

You work specifically with youth here in Uinta County, as early as 10 years old.

Tell me what you do?

- So what I do is I work with youth ages 10 to 17, with disability or at risk.

And what we do is we place them with a one-to-one mentor, somebody within the community that they can spend some time with, outside of the home and outside of school.

- [Craig] Is that an adult or an older adolescent or?

- An adult.

So they have to be 21 or older, to be a mentor.

They have to pass background check and, you know, fill out the application and all that stuff.

But we, so they spend two or four hours a month with their mentor.

At least four hours a month with their mentor.

Doing different activities, just getting outside of the home, and having that one-on-one time with somebody who cares about them.

Having that good role model.

And the other thing that we do is we have them set goals.

We have four areas that we want to see improvement with our youth.

So we have them work on life skills, education, employment, healthy relationships, and community involvement.

- So I assume the schools also give some help with those sorts of goals, those skills that you were talking about here.

But what have you, what have you seen the outcomes have been with these mentor programs that you've talked about?

- It has been amazing.

There's two, two girls that come to mind, that we have just seen such, such great changes, positive changes.

Then we had one girl over in the valley, when she joined, she was a freshman in high school.

She was so shy.

She wouldn't even look at at me when I was talking to her the first time.

She could hardly understand her would, you know, very quiet, reserved.

On a couple of different depression medication, and had some learning disabilities and those type of things.

Within six months of being matched with her mentor, at our six month meeting, she was a completely different girl.

I didn't even recognize her.

She was happy and bubbly and, she just exuded this confidence within her.

And her mom said, I can't thank her mentor enough, because of her mentor, she is now this outgoing, loving young woman who, she's off of all of her depressant medication.

And her senior year, she went to Girls' State.

She was manager of the football team.

And she went to college.

And I really don't think that would have happened without her mentor.

- What type of person, or what kind of person wants to be a mentor?

Have you discovered?

- Somebody who wants to make a difference.

Somebody who wants to give back to their community.

Somebody who wants to make a change in a youth's life.

And that's the biggest.

- And then these people just come to your door and say, I want to help.

(Wanda and Bethany laughing) - I wish, I wish they were lining outside.

- Is that how it happened?

- There's a lot of networking, you know, going out and talking with the people that I know, and going up to them and say, you know what?

You would make an awesome mentor.

- And what's their response?

I don't have the skills I haven't been trained.

- Yeah, but like, there's no way I could be a mentor.

And so then I talked, I'm like, all it is is four hours a month.

Spending time with a youth.

Well, that's a lot of time.

That's an hour a week.

Bring them over to your home and have them have dinner with your family.

Let them see what family outside of their family looks like.

What a compassionate adult looks like in their life.

Somebody who cares about them.

Go for a walk with them, you know, that's really all it is, is somebody that will listen to them.

- I've had a chance in my career to work with folks with disabilities in different positions that I've had.

And to understand that employer, employee relationship.

And I think for some employers, and let's start from their perspective first, who might be watching this today.

Might be a scary thing to consider employing someone with disabilities.

So what do you tell employers who you approach, to say, you know what, this is an opportunity here, to someone who maybe have, maybe can help you in your business.

What do you tell them?

- Well, I talk to them about the benefits of hiring people with disabilities.

You know, such as long-term, it's been proven, they stay on, there are more loyal.

And first of all, we have to mention that if it's, if it's a good match.

If we just take somebody with a disability and say, oh, let's put you here.

Is that what the person with the disability wants to do?

Is that gonna work for them?

So we, you know, you really have to make sure you have a good match and that they have the support, both with a job coach, through vocational rehabilitation, or with, through the Medicaid program.

So, you know, that's one thing that I do emphasize with them.

But what I have found interesting since I've been doing disability in Uinta County is, the best way I have found to work with employers on hiring people with disabilities, is engaging them with youth's with disabilities.

And we do that like three times throughout the year.

In October, is our National Disability Employment Awareness month.

We match youth with disabilities with employers, and they spend the day with them.

And I know early on in our journey, we talked to an employer, and you could tell they were really off about employing people with disabilities for several reasons.

But, and you know, a lot of times employers are not going to say I'm scared, or this scares me.

It's, you know, different things.

- Maybe not certain, not comfortable.

- Or uncomfortable, and so what we did is we matched them with a youth with disabilities and older youth.

They spent the day with them and they ended up hiring her.

And then they became an employer that hired people with disabilities.

And it was just that connection to say, here's somebody it's not that scary, and we're here to support.

So it worked out very well.

- I want to tell our viewers, we're going to go visit with a couple folks in Uinta County with disabilities and their employers a little bit later in the show.

Does it often take maybe, a visit or two or four or six from you, to allow employer, an employer to feel a little more comfortable or to maybe understand that, you know what, maybe this is an opportunity that might work for me.

- Yeah, I think it does take a while.

And you know, we've been doing this for 23 years, and so, we have several employers that, are a lot more comfortable with employing people with disabilities and, where it's just part of their hiring process now.

So it, I've seen it change over the years.

Where it's more, you know, welcoming.

- If you were to tell me, Wanda, the biggest maybe, misunderstanding or uncertainty that employers have about folks with disabilities is, how would you complete that sentence?

- Well, they're worried about accommodations.

You know, they think accommodations are so expensive and what I, what do I do to accommodate people?

And they have, have no clue of, but that's one of their main concerns is accommodations, and that, and the expenses that they may occur with hiring an individual with disabilities.

- And how do you respond to that?

- You know, I give them the best referral.

I connect them with job accommodation network.

It's called Jan.

They are an amazing organization that answers every question that you have concerning, whether you're a person with a disabilities, or an employer to talk with them, because there's so many accommodations that can be made that to, to be an expert on all of that would be tough.

So, I've just used Jan throughout the years and recommend they talk to them.

And employers find them as a great resource to learn about accommodations.

- Bethany, how do you learn about youth who might be able to take advantage of your program?

How, how do you know who you can help?

- That's a great question.

So we partner with a Wraparound Services here in Evanston.

They worked with.

- What is that?

- So Wraparound Solutions is a whole family service.

They work with kids ages four to, I think, 21, I believe.

And they help them coordinate their services.

So getting everybody on the same plate.

And so we work a lot with them, getting them.

They give us a lot of referrals of kiddos who could use some extra support and help in their life.

And then another, is through the schools.

School counselors will recommend kids to the program and just say, you know, I think this program would really fit for you.

It'd be a really good, good opportunity.

And we've had a few referrals from the kids, you know, kids telling their friends about the program.

- It seems to me nationally, maybe, that folks might be more receptive to coming into a business and being served by someone with disabilities in a more comfortable way, than they may have been 10, 15, 20 years ago.

Is that your observation?

- It is, one fun story I like to share is, we had a young man placed at a grocery store in Bridger Valley and he would bag the groceries.

He was young man with down syndrome, and very friendly, outgoing.

And people would stand in line, to have him bag their groceries and visit with him.

Even though there were other lines open.

So, I'm finding that people are very open to seeing people with disabilities.

And as we talk to the Murdoch's and First Bank, it'd be a good example of that question, that people are, are engaging with people with disabilities.

And then, you know, there's some disabilities that are hidden, people don't even know.

- I'm sure that, and we'll end with this, but it's, it's not a bed of roses.

There are turbulence, I'm guessing, along the way.

Have you found that employers are able to deal with those in a productive way?

- I find that employers will go above and beyond.

They want to know what they can do to help this individual, and to move, help them move forward.

And so I find that, they want help.

They want to know what to do.

- Bethany Scheidler and Wanda Rogers.

Thank you so much for joining us on Wyoming Chronicle.

We're going to go out into the community now, and visit with a couple of folks with disabilities who are employed here in Evanston.

But for now, thanks for joining us.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

(uplifting music) - Hi, I'm Jennifer Joiner.

I'm a file clerk at First Bank of Wyoming.

I work part-time, and I validate documents to be, excuse me, verify documents to be certain that they've been scanned into our computer system.

Because now banking is all imaging.

So I have to make sure what's ever scanned is truly there in our system.

I've worked at the bank for six years.

The reason I wanted to work at the bank is, when I was with the department of vocational rehabilitation department, doing counseling to get a job.

My only real previous ways of earning money was in the restaurant business, which was not horrible.

But as I got older, I realized, you know, it was not challenging, and plus I was, you know, getting tired and I wanted to do something professional.

And so I was just very lucky that my job coach knew of this job.

That First Bank was looking for somebody to verify documents and it's just worked out so swell.

And this job is so important to me because, first and foremost, I work for a great company.

That's a division of a great corporation, that really cares about banking and that customers benefit from what banking provides to a community.

This job definitely gives me so much meaning, and structure, as well as people I work with, my boss, and just all my coworkers.

It's, you know, and after six years, it's, I never really worked at any place longer than a year.

And I, you know, worked, you know, some in my life, and that relationship you build is all brand new to me.

And it's, you know, I'm human, sometimes, you know, I'm like, oh, I gotta go to work, or something like that.

But, you know, it's always rewarding, you know, because it's a great place to work.

- My name is Luke Hicks.

I'm the deposit services manager here at First Bank of Wyoming.

And, yeah, it's a great thing having Jen here with us, my job as her supervisor is to manage her, obviously, we have a whole department that is quality control for our division.

We review all documentation throughout the new accounts and operations side of the bank.

And so having Jen here to help back us up, and to help review our work is huge.

And here at First Bank of Wyoming, we do encourage those with disabilities to get out there and have a profession.

I do feel like Jennifer is a huge example to help those broaden their horizon and to reach out and to see what they can do to help corporations or businesses, or, you know, banks even.

Over the last year, a couple of years, three or four years especially, Jen and the group and I have been involved in quite a bit of community involvement.

We've had some, you know, team building activities.

We've helped the senior center.

We packed meals for them.

We took a whole evening and it was hard work, but it was really fun.

And so we were able to, you know, serve the community.

- Homecoming parade.

- Yeah again, we help with parades, you know, as First Bank we enter a lot of parades at the homecoming, and we have big themes, and just, showing our faces in the community saying, you know, that just because you have a disability doesn't mean that you can't help and serve the community.

- Wonderfully, Luke, my boss, we've both grown in the last six years, because when I first started six years ago, Luke was the bank teller supervisor.

Yep, right?

And we, I, whatever I needed to do, I would often ask Luke, because I'd never worked at a bank before.

I'm not techie, you know, and he's brilliant.

Luke is great.

And, you know, he was always so kind and so helpful.

And, it's just through First Bank's commitment, that I've just been able to learn so much.

And it's, you know, just been because of the people I work with.

- And for sure, definitely witnessing the aha moments, the oh wow, that's why we do it that way.

And Jen has been incredible.

Nowadays, I have to bring her in and say, Jen, we might be going a little too far on this.

You know, we don't necessarily need to know or need to be diving in this deep.

But she's just interested in all of it.

She just wants to know more.

She wants every single day, she's wanting to know, why and wanting to know, you know, why we did it the way we did and, and she's finding things that, you know, could have, should have been caught.

And she's, you know, she's very good at what she does.

(Luke laughing) - I'm Bob Pellatz, I'm a hard side associate at Murdoch's.

And I help customers with freight, showing them where stuff is to when they come in, and take them, show them where the stuff is that they need.

Namely, also load out the flat carts, we load out feed.

And then take it out and put it in their vehicles.

Do carry outs, that's the most important part of this job is making sure we get the merchandise loaded on the flat carts and a cart.

And you get to taken out to their vehicles.

I've worked here 15 years, and I like the job cause we've got a lot of people we know they're repeat customers.

And we like to see the ones that have been in here before come in here and help them out again, and that works out good for me.

Having repeat customers, and knowing who your customers are, pretty well know who you are and what they want when they come in.

I got hired out through the mentoring program.

I come in here one day and Brad Elmer, was assistant manager, and I set up an aisle, and put the freight on an aisle, and went up there by the Sheriff's office to dinner that they had up there for a mentorship program and, he hired me out right after dinner, and went to work the next day.

He hired me out the first day I was here.

It keeps me going.

I get up every morning, drink my three cups of coffee and come down here and go to work.

I've got a mister coffee, coffee pot that make three cups, and I drink that, and then come down here to work.

And it gets me up and gets me out of the house, and gets me going every day, where I've got something I can feel comfortable doing coming down here and working.

- Having Bob here working with us every day has been not only a pleasure, but a great asset to Murdoch's.

He shows up on time every day, he works hard.

He answers the radio.

He's the first to go and load something out for a customer.

And customers will come in and ask for Bob, and want Bob's help.

And it's been a really blessing, and a great asset to us.

Hiring folks like Bob with disabilities has been a huge asset for Murdoch's.

I look forward to working with him every day.

I think Bob brings many qualities to the job, that is over the top.

I watch him on a daily basis and I'm very impressed.

He strives for excellence, which Murdoch stands for.

And he is right up there as an excellent team member of the Evanston team.

We, we value him.

He, he goes above and beyond more than I even ask.

And I'm very grateful for that.

Hiring folks with disabilities is a huge benefit for any company.

You never know who you're going to hire, and you never know what they're going to bring to the table.

I've noticed since hiring folks with disabilities, that we've had a tremendous turnout.

I'm grateful for their personalities.

I'm grateful for the experience they bring to the team.

I am grateful that I have an opportunity to work right along with them and help them.

And they helped me learn things that I don't know, either.

(uplifting music) - Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council.

Helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

Thinkwy.org.

And by the members of the Wyoming PBS foundation.

Thank you for your support.