ABLE Lunch-and-Learn Speakers Discuss How Vocational Rehabilitation Services Aid People With Disabilities
During more than a decade in leadership positions at Walmart and Walgreens, Deb Jones consistently hired people with disabilities, developing a strong partnership with the Vocational Rehabilitation team at the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
Her passion led her to leave private business and join TWC, where she is now a business relations coordinator for Vocational Rehabilitation Services.
“I also have family members with disabilities.” Jones said Thursday during a lunch-and-learn presented by Special Emphasis Program ABLE (Able, Believe, Lead, Empower) for National Disability Employment Awareness Month. “That’s why I have such a passion for what I do. I felt like the biggest impact that I could make was leaving private industry and going to the state and working with all of our local partners to strengthen their programs.”
Jones and Dr. Alison Burns, like Jones a Vocational Rehabilitation business relations coordinator for Dallas-Fort Worth and surrounding North Texas counties, led the lunch-and-learn discussion about services offered by Vocational Rehabilitation, criteria for using those services and how to apply for them.
“One of the things that has become very obvious to us is the number of businesses that are opening their doors and expanding opportunities for folks with disabilities,” Jones said, later adding: “Alison and I develop partnerships with employers, and we’re able to tell within the first five minutes how far they are on their journey. AAFES is very far on its journey. You’ve got employer resource groups and the communication is there.”
Jones cited statistics stating that 19.6 million people in the United States between the ages of 21 and 64 have a disability. Vocational Rehabilitation Services helps people with disabilities find jobs and maintain jobs if they already have them. That includes people who become disabled while on the job. Jones referred to something she’d heard at a recent conference.
“They used a common terminology that I’ve thought about numerous times, which is that all of us are temporarily able,” she said. “When you look at it that way, there are so many times that something—one bad mistake or a different decision—and you’re disabled for the rest of your life. That’s where we step in and help people save their jobs.”
Vocational Rehabilitation Services offers multiple services to help remove barriers or to mitigate a disability to make it manageable. It assists people with physical and mental disabilities, hearing or visual impairments, traumatic brain injuries and other conditions that affect a person’s ability to obtain, retain or advance in a job. The No. 1 criteria is that a client must be willing and able to work.
“We do see individuals who come through our agency that just may not be ready at the time,” Burns said. “But that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t eventually serve them. And the individuals that we serve, we need to make sure that their disability is documented, so that as counselors and members of the business relations team, we know what sort of accommodations we can provide to the customer and the employer.”
Vocational Rehabilitation does more than just help clients find or maintain jobs. The goal is to find career opportunities for clients so that they can not only stay employed but work their way up the career ladder. And it doesn’t just work with people who are of “working age.”
“It’s critical that we start with our youth at a very young age,” Jones said. “We have folks who are partners with the school districts for their special-needs classrooms and are partnered with cities and municipalities that will want to participate in programs so that our youth have opportunities to go into some kind of substantial career pathway as soon as they graduate high school.”
Jones, who said she was previously a military spouse (“I have spent lots of money with AAFES,” she quipped), also said that Vocational Rehabilitation works closely with Veterans groups.
“I am very personally involved in serving Veterans,” Jones said. “We do regularly meet service members with disabilities. We serve Veterans whether they are honorably or dishonorably discharged. It doesn’t matter how they were discharged, the funding is available to assist and support them on their next career pathway. Many of us have family members that have served or are currently serving, so that it is a big, big deal to us.”
Although Jones and Burns work specifically in one region of Texas, which has several Vocational Rehabilitation Services regions, they stressed that the service is available nationwide.
“Any state you may be in, there is a Vocational Rehab Service program,” Burns said. “Wherever you’re at, there is a VR program out there, as long as you have a disability and you’re ready and wanting to return back to work.”
Contact information for all of the Vocational Rehabilitation centers that support the locations of all CONUS, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Guam Exchange and Distribution Centers is on the EEODI portal site. To view the information, click here.
The lunch-and-learn was preceded by a Where Heroes Work video featuring Amina Grant, a materials handler leader at the Dan Daniel Distribution Center who was named the 2019 worldwide Outstanding Associate With a Disability. Grant, who joined the DC’s custodial team in 1997, celebrated her 25th anniversary with the Exchange on Oct. 20. Jones cited her as a perfect example of an associate with a disability who has moved up the career ladder.
ABLE’s Executive Champion is Karen Stack, Exchange executive vice president and chief logistics officer. Program manager is Robert Stutson Jr., who helped introduce the lunch-and-learn. Aaron Gadson is assistant program manager. Army Col. Brian Memoli, deputy director of logistics, is co-chairman.
