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Valerie Scar has learned a lot over the past three years about the value that people with disabilities can bring to the workplace.

“Never in a million years would I have thought I could have a blind person answering (the store’s) telephone,” said Scar, who joined Hy-Vee Inc. as a human resources manager when the Mills Civic Parkway store opened in April 2006. However, using special equipment and training provided by the Iowa Department for the Blind, a blind employee now handles that job on a part-time basis.

Though the estimated 193,000 working-age Iowans with disabilities – 12 percent of the state’s total population – could be considered one of the state’s largest minority groups, this group is frequently overlooked as an employment resource. Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) estimates that 55 percent of working-age Iowans with disabilities are unemployed, and that one out of every four people with disabilities in the state lives in poverty.

Scar joined about 15 selected participants last week in an Employment First focus group in Des Moines, one of a series of suchdiscussions being held across Iowa. The Employment First initiative aims to lower the hurdles people with disabilities face in finding meaningful employment. Coordinating the discussions are the Iowa Association of Persons in Supported Employment (APSE) and the Medicaid for Employed People With Disabilities (MEPD) Advisory Committee.

The Employment First initiative in Iowa has two major goals:

• increase the number of Iowans with disabilities employed in competitive jobs; and

• increase the earnings of Iowa’s Medicaid recipients with disabilities.

The meeting in Des Moines was the seventh of 14 focus groups scheduled to bring together key stakeholders, including people with disabilities, service providers, educational agencies and employer representatives. Ideas gathered from those meetings will be discussed at a statewide summit on employing people with disabilities scheduled for Oct. 22 in Ames.

“These meetings are to focus attention on the issue, that after 25 years of effort, we still have an unemployment rate for people with disabilities that’s unacceptably high,” said Pat Steele, vice president of vocational services with Mainstream Living Inc., a Des Moines agency that provides residential and vocational services to adults with disabilities.

Among other organizations involved in the initiative with IWD and Mainstream Living are Link Associates, Easter Seals Iowa and the Iowa Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

Some of the major themes the Des Moines focus group discussed included the need to:

– eliminate attitudinal barriers of employers;

– provide more focus on job preparedness and training;

– focus on flexible and available (program) funding;

– increase awareness and expand employer education; and

– streamline benefits and services.

“I think everybody’s on the same track,” Scar said. “They want to see these programs be easier to maneuver.”

Thirteen states have enacted Employment First policies with that theme of easier manueverability in mind. In Oregon, state officials devised a comprehensive employment Web site that provides information and resources for people with disabilities or mental health issues, as well as for seniors, youth entering the workforces and employers. Tennessee re-evaluated Medicaid reimbursement rates paid to day service providers, establishing a higher reimbursement rate for integrated community employment than for any other type of service provision.

Hy-Vee has partnered with several Central Iowa agencies to provide employment opportunities for people with disabilities, Scar said. In addition to hiring two people who are blind, her store has hired workers through Goodwill Industries of Central Iowa’s back-to-work program, as well as people with Down syndrome. The company has also worked with alcohol- and drug-treatment recovery programs.

“For me personally, it’s made me have a different outlook on people with disabilities,” Scar said. “For the most part, they would rather be providing for themselves rather than being (dependent) on programs.”

An added incentive for companies is that many of these organizations provide funding to retrofit equipment and provide training for those employees, she said. The Iowa Department for the Blind, for instance, paid for the specialized telephone that enables the Hy-Vee receptionist to operate the system, and also paid a hiring bonus to the company.

Mainstream Living added vocational training programs to its residential services for people with developmental or mental disabilities three years ago. However, Steele said, only about 50 percent of the clients who complete the courses find employment.

Devon Burkhart, a 21-year-old Des Moines resident with high-functioning autism, took the course last year and has worked as a pre-sorter at a mail processing plant since October.

“I used to work in printing shops,” Burkhart said, “but I found out I couldn’t keep up with that line of work. I didn’t feel anything negative about taking that office skills class.”

In addition to providing training on computers, which is vital for both landing a job as well as performing in many positions, Mainstream Living has also begun a supported education program to help its clients take classes at Des Moines Area Community College, Steele said.

“I think one of the things we have to do better in Iowa is offer people with disabilities more opportunity for post-secondary education, so they have the skills needed to do the jobs,” he said.

“Nearly half the jobs in Iowa now require some amount of post-secondary education, so it’s just as important for people with disabilities,” he said.