Sarnia

Program promotes hiring students with disabilities for summer

A summer job program that connects students with a disability to businesses in Lambton County is encouraging employers to take part.

Community Living Sarnia-Lambton launched its seven-week Summer Employment Transition Program over 25 years ago.

Coordinator Laura Stokley said over that time, the initiative has provided a number of benefits for both employer and employee.

"The students involved have been struggling to find a job for so long that once they get one, they're just great employees -- they don't call in sick, they don't show up late, they're motivated, they're reliable," said Stokley. "In the long run for a business, especially if you're a privately owned business, this program saves you money-- you don't have to do job postings or worry about your staff leaving six months after you hire them."

Stokley said the program also helps the students gain confidence, and contribute back to the economy.

"I mean just quality of life alone, this program completely changes that. We've seen people that we've supported get completely off of this system, go from not working at all and collecting disability cheques to working full-time, having benefits, and buying a house."

Stokley said they're still looking for employers for a handful of the 53 students in this year's program, which runs from July 8 to August 23.

She said the program allows businesses to "test-drive" what it's like to hire someone with a disability.

"A lot of employers are scared to hire someone with a disability because of the fear of the unknown, so a lot of employers will start out with our summer employment program because it's very non-committal," said Stokley. "It's a seven-week program, and it gives employers the opportunity to actually see what someone with a disability can work like."

Stokley said despite recent funding cuts, the program is the largest summer jobs service provider in all of Canada -- in the summer of 2014 they had 86 students work in 100 jobs across the county.

In 2017, the program model was picked up by the Zero Project, a subsidy of the United Nations, and since then, the model has branched out to countries including Ireland and India.

Stokley said the program was also adopted by the former Vice President of Walgreens, Randy Lewis, about three years ago.

"He actually mandated that 20 per cent of his workforce from the group up has to be people with a disability because he saw so much value in the program that he funded it out of his pocket to get it rolling in his community just outside Chicago."

The program receives $180,000 from Community Living, and costs $3,000 to $4,000 per student.

Community Living provides each student with a job coach-- they typically hire one job coach for three students.

For more information about the program, contact Laura Stokley at 519-332-0560 or at lstokley@communitylivingsarnia.org.

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