Feature Issue on Employment and IDD

By years of service, Udac, Inc. is a 55-year-old service organization with a distinguished record in working with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). But, today, it is also accurate to say Udac’s community-integrated programs are 4 years old.

This is the result of redesigning the entire organization to realize the vision to create a community where opportunity is accessible to individuals of all abilities; one person, one career, one possibility at a time. This includes embracing competitive integrated employment (CIE) and meaningful community inclusion for people with IDD. Our programs use community resources, employers, and holistic personal growth models for personal skill development to advance Minnesota’s employment commitment and meaningful community inclusion for the people Udac is privileged to serve. The work being done at Udac ends historic and dated disability legacy programs that continue the segregation of people with disabilities in community activities and in employment opportunities. Udac is committed to program design that broadens work and life experiences by introducing community and employment opportunities not previously considered. Programs incrementally advance independence and self-determination through continuous assessment and guidance by career and life coaches skilled and committed to community inclusion and competitive integrated employment.

Getting employers involved

Udac is leading community innovation and collaborative efforts to create a more equitable and inclusive community for people with IDD. The Udac team learned early on that changing our work required a corresponding change in community resources and supports and this was especially true of our work with employers. Employers throughout the Duluth community have been very receptive to working with Udac to build workplaces and processes that support people with disabilities to be successful in an integrated work environment. Employment environments are collaboratively evaluated and adjusted to be more successful in attracting and retaining people with disabilities to be full members of the workplace. The employment infrastructure is participatory and the employees of the business work to design a stronger integrated environment that works for all employees.

One of the most important factors in Udac’s work is addressing every single issue, no matter how small it is, that keeps the person dependent on a career and life coach (or direct support professional) and provider services in their employment and in community living activities. Coaches are there to help people work toward managing their role and responsibilities independently. They design strategies with the person to establish responsibility and accountability for the entire work experience. Examples include making office keys and access codes the responsibility of the employee working the job. One organization changed how they manage recording time worked so that the employee could self-record their time. In another organization, job application and onboarding processes were redesigned to be inclusive of people with IDD.

Changing systems to help advance employment for all individuals, is critical to creating sustainable and long-term organizational changes that can exist without a provider like Udac needing to be on site. This philosophy is critical to full inclusion in the work environment and to eliminating or minimizing dependence on a service provider. Incremental and careful implementation of change allows independence and autonomy to evolve. Employers and their employees are involved prior to hire, and they actively and consistently work with Udac to help the person served advance their autonomy and achieve independence in their work.

Employers are encouraged and supported to engage in environmental scans of the organization. This results in suggestions about new job and career opportunities that have not been previously considered for people with IDD. The involvement and commitment of the human resources department is critical to discussing opportunities and barriers and to making organizational changes that are comprehensive and enduring.

How We’re Changing Employment

E1 MN is a Minnesota state agency partnership created to advance the state’s Employment First policy, which underscores that employees with disabilities should be paid real wages for real work alongside peers without disabilities. The policy is critical to Udac’s mission to create employment opportunities that achieve excellence in employment outcomes and to develop career opportunities and growth.

We recognized that most employment opportunities for people with IDD were recycled jobs using dated methods of helping people find jobs and dated methodology to support them at their jobs. An investment in an individual’s skill development and their achievement of independence needed to be much stronger. For people with IDD to consider employment roles that they were not knowledgeable about and learn how to be the best employee possible, Udac had to change the approach with the individual to include educational curriculum and provide broader exposure to work experiences. Giving the job seeker the opportunity to work directly with an employer in a collegial environment was identified as the best possible method to open employment possibilities and help the person with IDD achieve and see themselves as capable of success at a business in roles and responsibilities that allowed them to stretch their boundaries.

The Udac Business Internship Model was designed using a combination of the Career Pathways work from the U.S. Department of Labor, Education and Health and Human Services and concepts from the Project Search program.

The business internship creates synergy between the employer, Udac, and the person with IDD. All three are incentivized to promote skill development through training and education, and to reduce barriers getting in the way of improved job performance. The internship program includes defined curriculum lessons that address the soft skills necessary to be successful and sustain employment, while being committed to developing confidence, independence, and collegial bonds in the workplace.

The internship curriculum includes nine topic areas, such as customer service, professionalism, problem-solving, and critical thinking to advance employment skills. Daily employment experiences are related back to the curriculum and lessons are reinforced in the work environment as they occur. As appropriate, the Udac career and life coach, supervisors, colleagues and human resources personnel provide feedback for individual growth. Most importantly, the internship experience is designed to immerse the person with IDD in work roles and responsibilities that help them realize and demonstrate their capabilities while fostering independence and autonomy. The internship experience results in sustainable employment skills that are transferrable to other roles and new jobs in the future. An additional methodology, the Udac Personal Growth Model, considers all aspects of employment independence and needed community living skills, including the use of public transportation to get to work, as integral to developing the individual’s comprehensive skill set. The model’s framework, called You Are Capable, integrates employment, personal growth, confidence building, and independence skills to decrease dependence on disability service providers.

Essentia Health Internship Supports Career Development

The inaugural business internship was designed in collaboration with Essentia Health-St. Mary’s Medical Center, a 346-bed regional hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. The health system’s employment needs were identified and a nine-week paid internship, with a three-week experience in three job areas of the organization (guest services, environmental services and nutrition services), was designed. The Udac career and life coach, human resource personnel, supervisors, and employees engage in active mentoring of the interns and support of the program throughout each three-week rotation. The internship has been offered three times since March 2023 and additional work experience in sterile processing has been added.

The internship has resulted in employment positions being offered to each of the interns. The Essentia leader with oversight of the program, Chad Nurminen, said: “These employees are some of our best performers. They are hardworking and they know their jobs.”

All the employees hired continue to build their skills and advance in the work they do. Additionally, Nutrition Services Supervisor Mark Brennan noted that his favorite part of working with Udac interns is their “willingness and excitement to learn new skills, and to see them set goals, then reach their goals.” The success of the business internship program has inspired Essentia Health to plan an expansion of the program to other work areas and to other communities that it serves.

The organization has also benefited from a more diverse workforce, the removal of barriers, and the successful implementation of improvements in the application and hiring processes. Additionally, the program has helped reduce employee turnover in critical work areas.

Future goals for the internship include a systematic design and implementation of processes that place individuals in experiences across Essentia. It will include the development of mentoring, supervision, feedback systems, increased responsibility, and skill attainment to allow the intern to not just attain a job but to advance and grow in the organization. Replication of the business internship model in other communities and building on the lessons learned will benefit the entire organization.

Essentia’s mission is to make a healthy difference in people’s lives, and this program is a unique way to advance that mission while, at the same time, promoting inclusivity among an underserved population.

Family Feedback

Molly and Bill Watson, parents of Patrick, said their son’s experiences in the internship program have been transformational. “This internship experience has changed our son’s view of himself in relationship to his place in the world,” they told us. “He now knows that he can do so much more than he ever thought was possible. He goes to work and interacts with people from the community. They acknowledge him and his contributions. It has changed his sense of belonging in the community and has given him newfound confidence. There is no way to explain the difference in who he is after going through this internship. He even carries himself more proudly. It has allowed him to demonstrate abilities and find a new sense of accomplishment, a new way of seeing who he is and what he is capable of doing. This has truly been the best opportunity for Patrick, allowing him to experience three different employment roles with a variety of tasks.

Lessons Learned

Udac’s work to build these collaborative models has achieved unanticipated and exceptional results. Individuals have excelled in their job roles and become more independent. Their self-esteem has risen, their confidence to take on new experiences has expanded, they are successful in independent use of public transportation, and they have taken on additional responsibilities at home.

Udac built employment and community integrated models designed for each person to achieve, be adaptable, and grow in their resilience. Our work changed, and the people we served exceeded expectations. It must be stressed that highly skilled, talented, and committed career and life coaches are a fundamental key to the individual achieving success. Employers are partners in creating new opportunities and addressing employment barriers when given the right support and framework for success.

Excellence in employment outcomes and meaningful community inclusion requires changes in the disability employment processes being used to achieve the vision of E1MN.

There’s a saying at Udac that if the only colors you ever know are white, gray, and black, when you are asked what color you want you will say white, gray or black. Opening doors with creative job experiences in areas not typical for people with IDD helps people see who they might be and what they are capable of with a different lens. The same is true for providers. Finding jobs in the same spaces and with no vision for stretching personal boundaries keeps providers placing people in traditional jobs with no growth or career development opportunity. To expand employment and new career opportunities for people with IDD, organizations must change how they work. It makes a difference.