Staff photo by EMILY BARNES
Brett Davis stacks cafeteria trays after they have passed through the dishwasher as he works in the dish room at Westlake High School in Waldorf.
The recession might be officially over, but as anyone scouring help wanted ads can attest, it is still difficult to find work. The challenges are even greater for people with disabilities, who must battle prejudice and, particularly in recent years, stiff competition from nondisabled people when searching for employment.
Only one in every five disabled people was even part of the nation’s workforce last month, meaning they either have a job or have been looking for one in the previous four weeks, and 13 percent of those were unemployed, compared to 8 percent for those without disabilities, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But in Southern Maryland, organizations that provide services to people with disabilities believe they have a number of success stories that showcase an untapped resource for employers, a cache of willing workers whose physical or mental shortcomings are more than made up by their enthusiasm and dedication to the job.
‘Having a job is so normal’
People with disabilities face many challenges when looking for jobs, and “obviously the first one is the prejudice of employers, the fear that because people might be a little different that it might be a hardship for an employer or that it might impact people’s ability to do a job,” said Janice Frey-Angel, president and CEO of Melwood, an Upper Marlboro-based nonprofit that provides services to people with disabilities. “But once we get a person in to an employer and they realize how great they are, that all goes away.”
Recent economic conditions have made it even harder to convince employers that it is worth hiring a person with disabilities when there are so many nondisabled people also out of work.
“As hard as this economy is, convincing people that a [disabled] person can do a job is all the more difficult,” Frey-Angel said. “Obviously there’s more and more candidates, employers have more and more choices, so it makes it harder.”
In rural areas with few public transit options like Southern Maryland, those challenges include transportation to and from work and child care, Frey-Angel said. But when it comes to improving a person’s quality of life, few things are as beneficial as a job, she added.
“It gives you an identity and a meaning, especially if for most of your life you’ve been told what you can’t do and you find a job that you can excel in, it kind of reverses that feeling,” Frey-Angel said. “Having a job is so normal.”
To help both the people it serves and prospective employers, Melwood prefers “to focus on what the person can do and then go to an employer and match that up,” Frey-Angel said. “It’s a lot like computer dating.”
Melwood helped Sarah Cacciaglia find her perfect match eight years ago.
The Waldorf resident, born with an intellectual and learning disability, could have remained in high school until she was 21, when she would have become eligible for state-funded services through the Developmental Disabilities Administration, but Cacciaglia insisted on graduating from Maurice J. McDonough High School at 18, which she did in 2000.
After graduation, Cacciaglia started receiving vocational training at Melwood and after a few years started working as a Melwood receptionist in December 2003.
But eight weeks later, she landed a part-time job earning $8 an hour as a greeter at the Lowe’s hardware store in Waldorf. By that fall Cacciaglia had worked her way up to the paint department, where she still works part time 24 hours a week mixing paint for customers and calibrating the machines for $12 an hour.
“I can run the whole department myself,” Cacciaglia said.
“This has been a very good fit,” said Delores Cacciaglia, Sarah’s mother.
Sociable, self-aware and quick to smile, Sarah Cacciaglia said the best part of her job is “just talking to customers, holding a conversation with them.”
“Everyone at Lowe’s likes me. A few times I’ve gone out with the ladies at Lowe’s for a ladies night out,” she added.
“Every time I go to pick her up it’s, ‘Bye Sarah, bye Sarah,’” Delores Cacciaglia, said. “Everyone is really good with including her and socializing.”
Cacciaglia is one of 140 people throughout the state in Melwood’s supportive employment program. In eight years, she has taken only one sick day. On her days off, Delores drops Sarah off at the St. Charles Towne Center mall and returns three hours later. Mother and daughter also have started bowling as part of the Special Olympics and taken a computer course at the Waldorf Center for Higher Education.
Cacciaglia said she likes to draw, as evidenced by her anime-adorned bedroom, and read — she’s currently nose deep in “The Chronicles of Narnia.” She also cares for an adopted pet rabbit, Theodore.
“He likes my dad a lot,” Cacciaglia said with only a pinch of envy.
She also likes going to the movies with her parents, occasionally on her own dime, depending on how generous she’s feeling.
Often when the family is out, strangers who recognize Sarah from Lowe’s will come up and praise her work, Delores Cacciaglia said.
A 2001 graduate of McDonough High School, Brett Davis has Down syndrome and also is hearing impaired. He got his current job working in the cafeteria at Westlake High School through Melwood three years ago after spending the previous three years unemployed.
Davis works five hours a day, five days a week, washing dishes, sweeping and reloading lunch trays for students. He earns more than $9 an hour.
Davis previously worked at Melwood’s former thrift store in Waldorf and at an office on Berry Road before he became unemployed. While looking for a new job, he attended Melwood sessions to work on his resume and job skills.
Davis also enrolled in a training program at Sam’s Club through Melwood, but with so few jobs available, it was hard to find employers even willing to interview him, his mother, Nina Davis, said.
“It was just a bad time for finding jobs for anybody,” she said. “That is the big issue because Brett’s not able to do everything. It almost has to be a job that’s tailored to him and there’s not that many in the community.”
‘Home away from home’
As owner of the Turnabout Cafe in Owings, Pam Klink employs seven people with disabilities and two recovering drug addicts.
“That was my mission when I opened [as a nonprofit in April 2008],” she said. The cafe has since converted to a for-profit business but still maintains its original objective of providing jobs to the underemployed.
“They’re reliable,” Klink said of her disabled employees, though their capabilities vary depending on the disability.
One of those employees, Suzanne Hall of Huntingtown, is hearing impaired and also has attention-deficit disorder. The Arc of Southern Maryland, another organization that provides services to the disabled, helped Hall find her job more than three years ago.
“Been here ever since,” she said.
Hall makes $8.50 an hour and works 24 hours each week, Monday through Friday, washing dishes, prepping the kitchen, busing tables and peeling the occasional sweet potato.
“This is my first real job. It’s a nice, fun atmosphere, kind of like my own little home away from home,” Hall said. “Everyone has a good sense of humor. We pick on each other, tell jokes.”
A 2004 graduate of The Harbour School in Annapolis, a school for students with learning disabilities, autism and speech impairments, Hall said that even she has developed a greater appreciation of what people with disabilities are capable of.
“There are some people with disabilities who are pretty high functioning and can do whatever a normal person can,” she said.
During a short stint working at the Holiday Inn in Solomons, Hall said she was “amazed” by what a co-worker with Down syndrome could do, and that it even “changed my opinion” of people with more severe disabilities than her own.
“It’s really not fair to dismiss people with disabilities so easily,” Hall said. “It’s like judging a book by its cover.”
But one challenge for potential employers is that, due to privacy laws, they are often unaware that they are interviewing a disabled person, and even if they are, it is often without knowledge of the specific disability. Klink said she knows several “high-functioning, capable students” who have not gotten jobs because an unknowing employer thought they were “quirky,” mistaking their disability for disinterest, immaturity or rudeness.
“Particularly when you’re talking about high-functioning” people with disabilities, it would help if organizations could disclose the disability so prospective employers knew about it up front, Klink said.
As for what employers could do, Klink said that even “if they weren’t permanently hiring somebody [with a disability], at least give them a three-month trial” period as a volunteer so that they can become familiar with the capabilities of disabled people and the volunteer can get some work experience.
“Learning how to have a job, that’s the main thing,” Klink said.
For Mechanicsville resident Adam Cornelison, a 2009 volunteer opportunity at the True Value hardware store in Leonardtown turned into a part-time job offer this fall.
A 2010 graduate of Chopticon High School, Cornelison began looking for a job this past summer with help from The Arc of Southern Maryland, which does not disclose its clients’ disabilities, citing privacy laws.
Cornelison applied to half a dozen jobs, but he said he was mainly interested in an opening at True Value, where he had made friends and developed a comfort zone as a volunteer.
“I wanted to come back,” Cornelison said.
He got his wish in September and began working from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, making $7.25 an hour stocking shelves, assembling merchandise and assisting customers.
“I love to help out customers,” Cornelison said.
When he isn’t working, Cornelison said he likes to build model cars and work on real ones. He also attends a basic automotive training class offered by the Calvert County Parks and Recreation department in Prince Frederick on Tuesdays, said Norma Taylor, a senior employment team specialist with The Arc of Southern Maryland.
Cornelison is one of about 20 people Taylor works with in St. Mary’s County, she said.
The Arc has about 120 people in its supportive employment program and holds two employment contracts to provide housekeeping services at the Holiday Inn in Solomons and mail delivery at the state office building in Prince Frederick, said Ron Mould, director of community support.
The organization also works with transitioning high school students and provides vocational training, including classes in video game and cake design, Spanish, sign language and child care, he added.
Though it has had success in finding people like Cornelison part-time positions, The Arc is still struggling in a tight job market to secure full-time jobs, Mould said. It is an ongoing challenge to educate employers about the disabled, he added.
“It’s all about developing partnerships,” Mould said.
None of The Arc’s clients has been employed in the same job longer than Franklin “Mike” McAdams, who has worked part time at Calvert County recycling centers since 1990.
“He’s one of our success stories,” Mould said.
McAdams, of Prince Frederick, works three eight-hour shifts each week — two in Lusby and one in Barstow — and earns nearly $18 an hour plus full benefits. He keeps glass and wood out of the compactors, sorts recyclables and generally makes sure things go where they are supposed to, he said. Occasionally he rides along when county workers go to pick up furniture people are throwing away.
During his tenure McAdams has had several supervisors, and his disability can present difficulties when adapting to new personalities and job expectations.
But for McAdams, the benefits far outweigh the challenges.
“You can’t get me away from that job down there,” McAdams said. “It’s kind of like my home.”
jnewman@somdnews.com