Casting the net wider for a more diverse workforce makes sense as people with disabilities could represent an untapped demographic to fill your skills shortage. As of February, about four in 10 people with a disability are in the US workforce, compared to almost double that figure for people without a disability.

Benefits on offer

The benefits of employing people with a disability are many:

• In the four years to 2018, firms in the top 20% for workplace disability inclusion earned 28% more revenue and 30% higher profits than competitors, says Accenture, and
• A 2020 McKinsey study found the more diverse a company’s leadership is, the greater the chance it financially outperforms its less-diverse competitors. Research shows that a more diverse workplace improves productivity, employee satisfaction/commitment, retention, reliability, punctuality, individual and collective innovation, communication, and company reputation.

And there are spinoff benefits to consider. People with disabilities are the third-largest discrete market segment in the US, with a combined income of $21B-plus annually, according to the US Office of Disability Employment Policy.

A strategic approach

A strategic approach Making diversity ‘happen’ in your business doesn’t springboard from an ad hoc approach. You’ll need a strategy. But if you don’t have one, you’re in good company. Seven out of eight American employers do not have a dedicated strategy to attract, hire and retain people with disabilities. Sourcing and using ‘best practices may seem like a quick fix to jumpstart your efforts. However, ‘best practice’ might not fit your context or the person with disabilities you’re looking to hire.

Let’s look at your processes before you advertise a vacancy.

Check your recruitment strategy

Does your recruitment process create a safe environment for candidates to disclose their disability after you’ve conditionally offered them a job?

Consider that eight in 10 disabilities are invisible. They include chronic pain, dyslexia, traumatic brain injury, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, Crohn’s disease, and mental illness.

Carlos, a building surveyor with a government agency, didn’t feel comfortable mentioning his dyslexia diagnosis during his job interview. He still hasn’t told them, even after five years. This results in him putting in significantly more hours than his peers to read and re-read his emails and reports to ensure they meet acceptable standards. If Carlos’s employer knew about his learning disability, they could invest in assistive technologies – such as voice-to-text or vice versa – to help this committed and enthusiastic worker.

It may not be obvious to your HR team if candidates have disabilities and need accommodation and support. Legally, you can’t ask them disability-related questions or have them undergo medical exams until after you’ve conditionally offered them the job.

For example, if your new hire has told you they have autism, you may incorrectly assume that they need a specific type of accommodation. But they may not be the best fit for the person you’re hiring. All job accommodations your workplace makes must be customized to your recruit with disabilities rather than assuming one-size-fits-all.

Get some ideas from tech giants SAP and Microsoft about being more inclusive and accommodating of people with autism. These IT companies hire such people for computer coding and product development work. Check out Microsoft’s Neurodiversity Career Connector, a job marketplace for US employers seeking applicants with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, or other neurodivergent diagnoses.

Here’s how a business is inclusive in its automotive workshop. Their apprentice, Daniel, who has moderate-to-severe hearing loss and is long-sighted in one eye, is thriving thanks to a supportive workplace and through a group apprentice intermediary, his mentor, Daniel’s co-workers have learned to get his attention first, then speak so he can lip read. An aide takes notes when he’s at college for his technical classes. Daniel says, “People with disabilities can work just as well as people without disabilities. They need to be given a chance.”

Over the past 30 years, there’s been a shift from recognizing and promoting best practices that could be universally applied to all businesses. Instead, it’s about identifying promising practices, doing smart practice analysis, learning from each other, and failure. The focus is now on sharing smart practices, and that’s become something of a mantra for me.

You won’t need to reinvent the wheel to become a more inclusive company. Find out how other companies are approaching disability employment.

By Cynthia Walker, Senior Consultant, Institute of Workplace Skills and Innovation America (IWSI)

Meet Isaiah Parsons, a 22-year-old Missouri builder who has already been working in the industry for four year

Meet Isaiah Parsons, a 22-year-old Missouri builder who has already been working in the industry for four years. He’s also been awarded a nationally recognized qualification, as well as being a supervisor and manager. His secret to success? The Missouri Registered Youth Apprenticeship Program (RYA).

While still at high school, Isaiah started out at the very bottom, sweeping buildings before tackling carpentry after about six months. He worked hard and is now among the 75 qualified apprentices who’ve completed one of Missouri’s 26 RYA programs. The program is for 16- to 21-year-olds in high school or post-secondary education, and participants start their apprenticeship while still in junior high school.

I’m honored to have had a role in supporting Isaiah and many other young apprentices through the RYA program. That’s the work I do as a Senior Apprenticeship Consultant with IWSI America and we work with the Missouri Dept of Labor office, and that state’s Department of Higher Education of Workforce Development.

Leah Schulte is another graduate of the RYA program. Like Isaiah, she also received a higher starting wage because of her apprenticeship agreement with her employer. As a 17-year-old new apprentice, she was “scared to get into nursing”. But the program gave her hands-on experience working with real-life patients and people. This boosted her confidence. Leah graduated three years ago and is carving out a great career in nursing.

My role with IWSI involved supporting Isaiah, Leah, and other young apprentices closely as they navigated educational and career bumps and curves.

I recommended Isaiah and Leah as great models for breaking down generational barriers and misconceptions due to their maturity, work ethic, and highly successful careers that started before they graduated from high school. 

A study from the Pew Research Center shows that Millennials aren’t necessarily job hoppers, as people might assume. Their job tenure is pretty much the same as workers over the past four decades. Pew found about half of 18-to-34-year-olds have been with the same employer for three or more years.

It’s been a privilege to be involved in the RYA program over the past five years – Isaiah and Leah are part of my local community. We learned together from when the RYA program was a pilot to now when it’s fully fledged. I’ve been chuffed to assist many high schools and career center RYA startups to help expand this program nationally through the Youth Apprenticeship Initiative. IWSI and the Urban Institute are driving that.

It’s part of the nationwide momentum to foreground youth apprenticeships. On March 9, then Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh, launched his department’s Youth Employment Works Strategy, which includes a ‘no wrong door policy’. It’s all about enhancing entry points for young workers, getting the public and private sectors to collaborate on forging youth career pathways. It is a big deal. I love that it’s put right up there the need to offer guaranteed paid work that is safe and age appropriate. Check out more from the Bureau of Labor’s blog.

This strategy is much-needed. According to Trading Economics, the youth unemployment rate in our country rose to 8.10% in February from 8% a month earlier. It’s higher for 16-to-19-year-olds, hitting 11.1% in February, says Statista. That’s one in nine teens. We can’t sit on our hands while this potential goes wasted.

It was really warming that Isaiah and Leah were among the youth featured at the strategy launch to represent the state of Missouri. Their presence highlighted the power of the RYA program to create meaningful pathways for young apprentices.

Our nation needs a workforce with people like Isaiah and Leah. That’s why it’s so important to prioritize investment in the next generation and mentor them into career paths beyond high school graduation.

If you’re an employer or industry association looking to build your talent pipeline with youth apprentices, please contact me and IWSI America for your next step. I can save you time with well-honed tips, shortcuts, and suggestions about funding options from my years in this field.

View at Medium.com

Late in 2018, a diverse group of companies, community and educators met to cement a partnership that would bring high-quality career pathways — apprenticeships — to southeastern Kentucky’s Appalachian region.

The Kentucky Advanced Technical College High, which was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, combined technical instruction with paid, on-the-job training under a skilled mentor. The goal was to help students in the region move smoothly from high school to postsecondary education and employment.

Kentucky Appalachia has been affected drastically by the loss of coal jobs, the opioid crisis, pervasive poverty, and health care disparities. To address these issues, the program partners expressed particular interest in developing apprenticeships for high-demand, high-growth occupations in allied health. Apprenticeships in these areas would provide both solid careers and needed services in the region.

Business-education partners in apprenticeship

The partnership enlisted the Institute for Workplace Skills & Innovation (IWSI) America to develop the customized, innovative apprenticeship model. The group has previously provided technical support and program design to a wide range of businesses in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. Each apprenticeship program is unique and a hybrid model was developed to suit the local Appalachian circumstance.

The Appalachian model included the following elements:

• Working with educational institutions and other training providers to align technical skills and workplace competencies
• Working with educational institutions and employer partners to develop or modify curricular materials to meet changing business demands
• Offering professional development and capacity-building sessions for apprentice trainers and educators to ensure that training engages apprentices in active learning
• Identifying and training mentors to work with apprentices throughout the tenure of their apprenticeship
• Identifying apprentice candidates from underserved populations and isolated service areas
• Exploring and documenting employment pathway options for all apprentices participating in the program
• Recruiting additional businesses from the region who agree to hire apprentices
• Exploring comprehensive wraparound services to ensure apprentices can complete programs
• Managing assessments of apprentices’ competencies to produce periodic progress reports and validate their ultimate certification as skilled workers
• Developing long-term talent pipelines for employers

The Kentucky Advanced Technical College High partners include:

• Appalachian Regional Healthcare
• Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky
• University of Kentucky Healthcare
• Hometown Pharmacy
• Perry County Schools
• Hazard Independent Schools
• Hazard Community and Technical College

The career pathways program was launched in mid-2019, after months of intensive planning by the project partners. Students who progress through program completion can receive multiple credentials upon graduation, including a high school diploma, a U.S. Department of Labor accreditation, and even an associate degree. Beginning in ninth and tenth grade, interested students enroll in technical courses where they can earn both high school and college credit. The students also receive work experience in career areas related to their coursework, initially by job shadowing. Then, in their junior and senior years, the students may be hired as apprentices at local businesses.

Supporting students & the economy in times of challenge

Launching shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was not ideal. Despite that challenge, however, the partnership not only survived but thrived, with 65 students participating in the project to date. Some continue to work as apprentices for the programs health care partners; others enrolled in college to pursue interests in allied health — studying medicine or related fields. Still others discovered that careers in the health care field were not for them. Those learners shifted their dual college credit to another apprenticeship pathway, and we know they’ll find success.

Having resided in Kentucky for most of my adult life, I have witnessed the many challenges in Appalachia. I am proud of the partners and participants especially during the unprecedented time. Business, education, and community partners have come together to create a strong model for helping young people transition from school to meaningful work. Young people who may have left the area have stayed in Kentucky due to the partners’ investment in career pathways. They’re getting the education and experience they need to secure well-paying jobs in high-demand career fields.

By Deborah Williamson

For more than 40 years, teen courts across the 50 states have proven their success at letting high school students — serving as lawyers, jurors, bailiffs and judges — determine the real-life sentences of alleged juvenile offenders who are their peers.

Having created several teen courts in Kentucky, I know that such programs doubled as a pre-law apprenticeship for high school students, while also aiming to divert juvenile offenders from incarceration.

Judges who preside over juvenile courts often have acknowledged that what happens in those proceedings amounts to a stern lecture to young, low-level offenders. They see teen court as a refreshing approach that allows offenders to be judged by individuals their own age, who have had similar life experiences. And young offenders are responsive to that dynamic. They are fully engaged in proceedings that are not rote and scripted. They’ve watched as teen prosecutors argue for maximum terms and teen defense attorneys cite reasons why sentences should be lenient.

Some of our strongest and most steadfast teen court participants, including jurors, actually had had prior offenses resolved through the teen court process. They freely acknowledge the second chance and are grateful that they weren’t marred by a criminal record that might damage their future.

Aspiring lawyers are recruited for teen court

Led by prosecutors and defense attorneys and presided over by an actual, adult judge, highly structured teen courts orient students on the roles of lawyers, court clerks, bailiffs and jurors. When they complete the training, students are sworn to an academic year of service by court judges in a formal ceremony attended by parents and members of the community.

All participants are sworn to confidentiality; they may be removed from the program and subject to sanctions if they violate this confidentiality.  Some states require teen court participants to pass an exam prior to being sworn to service.

Though it varies by state, generally, offenders referred to teen court are between the ages of 13 and 17 and have been charged with such low-level, nonviolent offenses as theft by unlawful taking, criminal mischief, harassment, criminal trespassing, disorderly conduct and so forth.  A teen court participants decide whether and how a teen defendant should be sentenced, they are operating under the idea that judgement by ones peers can have a positive effect, encouraging law-abiding behavior and community engagement. The ideas is that teens are highly sensitive to peer opinion.

Dispositions made in teen court typically include community service, restitution, apologies, counseling, educational programs and other alternatives. In the Kentucky programs I established, teen defendants always were required to return to serve on a teen court jury, reinforcing pro-social engagement with peers.

If a judge accepts a teen court jury’s ruling on a case, it is binding and becomes part of the record. Offenders who comply with the terms rendered by the teen court jury may have their case settled without it becoming part of court records. Cases of those who don’t comply may be sent to juvenile court and resolved there.

The wins in this program are unparalleled. Rates of compliance with teen court dispositions generally are high; rates of recidivism are low.  The program also provides excellent lessons in corrective and procedural justice and fosters the development of enlightened, engaged citizens. For multiple years in high school, many teen court participants serve the court and, ultimately, seek admission to law school or other related field in the justice system.

Teen court and other apprenticeships have increased in number

Teen courts can be strengthened even further by incorporating them into a pre-apprenticeship or federally recognized registered apprenticeshipprogram.

Apprenticeships provide a paycheck, on-the-job training and related classroom instruction.  Apprentices who successfully complete their training get a recognized, portable credential and, often, some college credit.

Registered apprenticeship has grown 70%  the United States over the last 10 years.  And according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the paralegal and legal assistant professions are projected to grow 12% between 2020 and 2030, faster than the average for all occupations. That translates into 43,000 para-professional jobs per year for the next several years.

One approved apprenticeship in the field – paralegal – mirrors the tasks participants in teen court already do:

• Preparing and managing legal documents.
• Meeting with individuals involved in a legal proceeding to either clarify or gather additional information.
• Coordinating schedules and activities in legal proceedings.
• Representing the interest of clients in legal proceedings.
• Mediating disputes between parties.

If these skills were incorporated into a teen court registered apprenticeship, participants could turn an informal job route into a solid career pathway.

Given the success of both teen court and apprenticeship, it would seem wise for leaders in both areas to align their efforts and create a teen court apprenticeship that would give young people career opportunities in the fast-growing and well-paid legal sector.

https://jjie.org/2022/05/10/opinion-teen-run-courts-dispense-justice-launch-legal-careers/