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April 27, 2010
Improve: Those with disabilities need better help with job placement, training-Guam
The following information was downloaded from the mailing list of "Disability and Development" with a cooperation of the publisher, Mr. Soya Mori.
April 24, 2010
On Monday, more than a dozen employers will interview people with mental and physical disabilities as prospective job candidates at the Special Challenges Job Fair.
The event is being held by the local Department of Labor in partnership with the Guam Developmental Disabilities Council, the Guam System for Assistive Technology and the Department of Integrated Services for Individuals with Disabilities' Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. It coincides with a federal job fair for people with disabilities being held Monday in Washington, D.C.
The government of Guam must get beyond these token events and work to fix a core problem -- its poor performance in training people with disabilities for the workforce and finding them jobs that will help them become self-sustaining.
On an annual basis in recent years, the local disabilities agency has had to return hundreds of thousands of dollars to the federal government because it failed to use the money to help DISID clients find or train for jobs. It often takes the agency years to find employment for clients, and often those jobs are low-paying, menial labor, such as janitor or kitchen helper, according to Pacific Daily News files.
Now that the federal court has appointed a management team to oversee the Department of Integrated Services for Individuals with Disabilities, as well as the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, perhaps there will finally be some long-overdue progress in helping those with disabilities find gainful employment.
The team has the power and authority it needs to either ensure the government of Guam implements long-overdue changes to vocational rehabilitation programs, or to outsource those duties to a competent contractor.
Our local government's shameful and substandard services to help those with disabilities find meaningful jobs needs to be rectified immediately.
http://www.guampdn.com/article/20100424/OPINION01/4240315
Posted by jicafriends at April 27, 2010 09:56 AM