What do we talk about?

Only a few of us are employed, and even fewer of us enjoy our work or are paid a fair wage for the work we do. We know that we are not alone. The reality is that most adults with disabilities in Virginia are unemployed.

We would like to help employers better understand that people with disabilities can contribute to the work force. There are specific supports we may need, but we have the right and the desire to work.

We would also like to help other people with disabilities learn about other ways to work. We want to learn more about self-employment and tele-working from home.

Some of the problems we've talked about related to employment are:

• Employers don't think we can do the work.
• Employers can't pay for the accommodations or modifications we may need to do our jobs.
• Often there is no physical access to the places where we could work.
• Just getting to work is a real barrier for some of us.
• When we work at sheltered workshops, we don't get paid a living wage. Sometimes we don't get paid at all for the work we do.
• It's hard to know how many hours we can work before we loose the benefits we need to live.